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Global gas demand is expected to fall by 3% or 120 billion cubic metres (bcm) – its largest drop on record. Amid this slowdown, LNG continues to play a central role in balancing global gas markets, ensuring flexibility and security of supply. Faced with a historic fall in global gas demand in the first half of the year, gas producers and exporters have had to provide flexibility to adjust supply. LNG was one of the key enablers of this adjustment, with monthly global exports decreasing by 17% between January and July.

In this extraordinary context, LNG contracting activity has collapsed from its high of 95 bcm in 2018 to about 35 bcm in the first nine months of 2020. Meanwhile, the structure of LNG supply is set to be reshaped, since about one-third of active contracts are due to expire between 2020 and 2025, while export capacity is set to expand by 20%. These trends create an unprecedented challenge and opportunity for market participants.

This report offers a detailed analysis of recent LNG contracting developments and assesses the role of flexibility in gas supply adjustment during the Covid-19 crisis. It also provides updates on the latest developments in global gas markets and on the near-term outlook.

Global natural gas demand is growing strongly, supported by abundant and diversified sources of supply. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) remains a key enabler of international trade development with double-digit growth three years in a row, and with future growth potential supported by another wave of investment decisions in LNG export facilities throughout the world.

Much of the growth in LNG consumption is occurring in countries where LNG competes with other sources of natural gas and fuels, meaning LNG importers want more flexibility. The development of LNG spot trading, the growing share of destination-free supply contracts, and the rise of portfolio players as key buyers are all signs that the LNG market is responding to these increasing demands.

The International Energy Agency’s fourth edition of the Global Gas Security Review provides a detailed overview of these recent global market trends as well as specific regional analyses for major importing markets.

This year’s report focuses on three topics. It first provides an update on LNG market flexibility metrics based on a detailed assessment of recent contractual activity. It analyses the evolution of flexibility in LNG supply procured by traditional Asian buyers for their domestic markets, and how this flexibility could contribute to improving security of supply for fast-growing markets elsewhere in Asia. Finally, this year’s report includes a focus on north-western Europe’s gas security challenges as a major source of domestic supply (the Groningen field in the Netherlands) is phased out.

Today’s natural gas markets are being reshaped by major emerging liquefied natural gas (LNG) buyers, led by the People’s Republic of China and the rising production and exports from the United States. This transformation, driven by growing markets and supplied by fast-changing LNG trade, brings its share of security-related challenges as was highlighted by China’s supply shortfall over the last winter.

Supply flexibility remains a key prerequisite to ensuring continued global gas trade development and security. Yet priorities in terms of flexibility differ between long-term traditional buyers, who seek the removal of destination clauses, and new emerging buyers more focused on procuring short-term supply, usually for prompt delivery.

The International Energy Agency’s third edition of the Global Gas Security Review provides an in-depth analysis of recent security-related issues and lessons learned.

The report shows the most recent trends in LNG flexibility, based on a detailed assessment of contractual data. It examines the impact of the growing role of emerging LNG buyers and of the development of market liquidity on trade and new contracts. And, this year, it includes a special focus on short-term LNG deliverability as well as shipping fleet availability, two important factors in assessing gas security of supply around the world.

Natural gas markets are changing at a rapid pace, moving from regional integration to a more globalised and interdependent market. This transformation is creating new security-related concerns, which remain alive despite the current state of oversupply in the gas market.

The International Energy Agency’s second annual Global Gas Security Review offers an extensive assessment of recent gas balancing issues and related policy developments linked to security of supply, as well as lessons learned from recent events.

This year’s edition also updates the liquefied natural gas (LNG) flexibility metrics that were developed in last year’s report. Our latest data shows a continuing improvement in supply and contractual flexibility, which are expected to develop in the near future, along with the growing diversification of market participants and a lasting situation of oversupply.

To improve the risk assessment of importing countries, the report introduces a new typology of LNG buyers as a tool to measure market exposure, and related security of supply issues per type of buyer, as well as provides a measure of future LNG market evolution.

As the energy system becomes more globalised and interconnected, gas security challenges are evolving. The current period of gas oversupply – driven by overcapacity in the LNG market – should not overshadow the critical importance of global gas security.

Global Gas Security Review 2016, the first edition of a new annual series, examines the evolving global gas market structures and looks at the market’s ability to respond to potential shocks. It shows that the current situation could lead to a false sense of comfort about gas security, which could evaporate quickly once market conditions change.

The report also analyses how LNG markets responded to the Fukushima accident through case studies focusing on Japan and Europe. Both regions have fuelswitching potential but also face structural changes as coal and oil-fired capacity retires, affecting the gas market’s flexibility to respond to overall shocks.

Global Gas Security Review 2016 also addresses two critical forward-looking questions: how much redundancy is embedded in the LNG upstream and liquefaction chain, and how flexible is LNG production?

This year’s winter gas season opens with extreme natural gas price levels and volatility, caused by unprecedented uncertainty of supply as Russia steeply curtails its pipeline deliveries to Europe. The result is considerable market tension in alternative sources of supply. Security of supply has become a top priority in Europe and other importing regions as a total cut-off in Russian flows to Europe cannot be ruled out, creating further tensions and demand destruction for all competing LNG importers.

The gas crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has caused a series of market adjustments. European buyers have strongly increased their LNG procurement, resulting in market tightening and demand destruction in various importing regions. This has also had a visible impact on LNG contracting behaviours, with a return to more traditional features such as fixed-destination and longer-duration contracts. The European Union, whose member states are directly exposed to the threat of further supply cuts, has adopted a number of measures to enhance security of supply and market resilience ahead of the coming winter.

This quarterly report includes the IEA’s annual Global Gas Security Review and an analysis of short-term gas market evolution to 2023.

Winter 2021/22 opens with record high seasonal gas prices, as the combination of a strong recovery in demand, extreme weather events and unplanned supply outages have led to tighter markets. Such tensions are a reminder that security of supply remains a major topic for gas markets, only a year after a record drop in demand and oversupplied markets.

The succession of market events over the past year further illustrates the critical role flexibility plays in ensuring security and continuity of supply. Flexible liquefied natural gas trade – alongside other major components of the gas flexibility toolbox such as interconnectors and storage capacity – has been and remains instrumental to adjusting to sharp and unexpected demand swings (both up and down). Delivering flexible and yet secure supply is likely to become more complex for systems in transition as they switch to low-carbon gas to reach net zero emission objectives. Regulators should therefore adopt a prudent and scalable approach to market design to ensure security of supply in a transitioning gas system.

This new quarterly report includes a review of gas security in light of recent supply-related developments, and an analysis of short-term gas market evolution to 2022.