Illustration photo – A Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker at Raslaffans port in northern Qatar in this undated photo.
New York – Russia's role as a global player in the energy market will diminish. In the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, a number of countries, such as the United States or Qatar, will benefit from this, CNBC reported with reference to analysts. Sanctions imposed by Western nations on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine have drained most foreign investment from Russia's LNG sector.
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“Russia's share of global LNG supplies will almost certainly decline this decade,” said Henning Gloystein, an analyst at consultancy Eurasia Group. He added that Russia's role in the LNG market was already weakening before the start of the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's ambitions will be hampered by the country's inability to buy natural gas liquefaction equipment, said Zhi Xin Chong, head of South and Southeast Asia gas at S&P.
“Given the vast With the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia, it will be very difficult for it to expand its liquefaction capacity this decade,” Zhi said. According to him, the capacity of Russian LNG production facilities will remain at the level of 37 million tons in the coming years.
By 2030, the total global LNG capacity will increase by 50 percent to 671 million tons per year. Russia's share will drop to five from the current 6.7 percent, S&P estimates.
In 2021, before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was the world's largest exporter of gas and also the fourth largest exporter of LNG after Australia, Qatar and the United States. In the first half of last year, the United States overtook Qatar and Australia to become the world's largest supplier of LNG, according to the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA). Zhi expects that by 2030, a quarter of global LNG production capacity will be in the United States and 19 percent in Qatar.
The opinion that the US and Qatar are the main beneficiaries of Russia's retreat from the global LNG ecosystem is also shared by Gloystein. According to him, the Eastern Mediterranean region could also benefit from this. Its geography lends itself to replacing Russian gas supplied by gas pipelines to southern European countries, especially to Italy, Greece and Croatia, the analyst added. Tanzania,” Gloystein said. He also pointed out that the opportunity is limited in time as Europe tries to move away from gas.
