There have been significant new developments in the liquefied natural gas sector, which support the view that we are about to enter a golden era for liquefication projects.
First, global demand is supported by continuously low LNG prices and high availability. Around fifteen new projects are expected to come online worldwide in the next four years, and existing supply is returning to market following planned or unplanned downtimes.
Output
Global production is forecast to reach 292 million tonnes in 2017, marking a significant increase of 34MT compared with 2016.
Secondly, there is huge potential for gas in markets such as China, the world’s largest consumer of energy, with the Chinese government targeting 15 percent of all energy use from gas (currently the number stands at 6 percent) by the end of the next decade.
China is also forecast to overtake Korea as the world’s second largest LNG import country. Meanwhile, Africa has already seen its first final investment decision (FID) of 2017 with Italy’s ENI agreeing to develop a floating LNG unit in the Coral South gasfield offshore Mozambique with 3.4 million tonnes per annum of capacity.
ENI’s Coral joint venture is billed as the world’s first ultra-deepwater floating LNG project.
The Fortuna floating LNG in Equatorial Guinea, whose investors include companies such as Ophir Energy of the UK and Golar LNG, was also set to announce a positive FID.
First published in the September edition of LNG Journal. To read the full article, click on the PDF linked below.