Anna Shiryaevskaya, Ruth Liao, and Stephen Stapczynski of Bloomberg report that in countries still reeling from the energy crisis, delays to LNG projects are pushing relief prospects further out. They write:
A wave of new liquefied natural gas supply from projects agreed years ago in anticipation of surging demand keeps getting pushed back, threatening to extend the global energy crisis.
Delays from the US to Mozambique promise little imminent relief from high fuel prices, despite more than $200 billion in investments that were supposed to flip the LNG market into oversupply as early as 2025. […]
“We haven’t seen much in the way of LNG supply growth, but demand for LNG has been rising,” Mark Simons, head of gas and power origination at TotalEnergies SE, said at a recent conference in London. The market is “reasonably tight, and as a consequence, European prices are high, as traders are worried about what that will be like in winter.”
The US, one of Europe’s top LNG suppliers, is unlikely to add many more export facilities beyond the current slate of approved projects due to rising construction costs and regulatory challenges, from Biden’s LNG permitting pause to courts yanking permits. […]
But for the world’s developing nations, it means competing with wealthier countries for expensive fuel cargoes. A surge in prices could hamstring efforts by countries like Pakistan and Thailand to secure shipments needed to feed the economy. Malaysia and Indonesia are also set to enter the market as net importers as they run out of reserves.
“If demand continues to strengthen, driven by improving macro conditions and new demand nodes like from data centers, then any oversupply in 2027 and 2028 could evaporate completely,” said Saul Kavonic, an energy analyst at Sydney-based research firm MST Marquee.
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