Though oil demand is projected to peak as soon as 2025, natural gas will play a pivotal role throughout the energy transition with demand set grow by 10% in the next decade before peaking by 2035, McKinsey forecasts. Investment in sustainable fuels – particularly hydrogen – is anticipated to reach up to $50 billion over the next three years.
Belgian start-up Tree Energy Solutions (TES), co-developer of the German North Sea LNG import project at Wilhelmshaven together with E.ON, has launched an open season to gauge interest. The regas terminal will initially import LNG to wean off Germany’s dependence on Russian pipeline gas before switching to green hydrogen imports from 2030.
Skyrocketing energy and food prices have pushed up UK inflation to 7% in March – the highest for 30 years – and analysts say it is on track to reach 8% this month. Germany was hit by a 7.3% rise in inflation in March as energy prices soared nearly 40% year-on-year, prompting the government to grant state aid to selected companies.
Fitch Rating says recent higher LNG netbacks in Europe compared to China make shipments and cargo diversions “more competitive” as the EU wants to reduce its dependence on Russian gas imports by two-thirds by year-end. Tight markets will keep prices high, analysts reckon, as more capacity will come onstream “only in the medium term.”
Chemical and energy giant INEOS has written to the UK government offering to develop a shale test site to prove gas production through fracking is “safe and secure.” The offer comes as Britain seeks to bolster its energy independence by expanding nuclear and offshore wind power as well as domestic oil & gas production in the North Sea.
Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi is traveling to Algeria today to sign a new gas supply deal as Rome strives to lower its dependence on Russian energy. Deliveries through the Trans-Mediterranean Pipeline are expected to be increased by 4 bcm per year at the most, adding to the 21.2 bcm of Algerian gas exported to Italy in 2021.
El Salvador has imported its maiden LNG cargo in early April when Shell shipped roughly 0.06 million tons of super-chilled gas to FSRU Tatjana near the Port of Acajutla. The permanently moored FSRU was built for exclusive use by the 378 MW Energía del Pacífico power plant and is jointly owned by BW LNG and Invenergy Investment.
Choking Russian gas deliveries to Europe by 80% in 2023 and halting it in 2025 would propel up European wholesale power prices by at least 12%, modelling by the registrar DNV finds. To replace Russian supply, Europe itself is expected to produce 12% more gas through 2030 and generate more electricity from renewables, coal and nuclear.
The Australians, supplying the largest share of China’s LNG imports at around 39 percent, expect the People’s Republic will import 86 million tons of LNG in 2022 – a slightly slower rate of growth, as Russia ramps up deliveries of rival pipeline gas through the ‘Power of Siberia’ interconnector. An economic slowdown also curbs China’s gas-burn for power generation.
France’s power grid operator RTE has issued a supply warning, urging local authorities and households to lower their energy usage. Electricity supply is “tense” as demand spiked following a cold snap over the weekend while about half of France’s nuclear reactors are offline and fuel for gas peaking plants is expensive and hard to come by.