BG Group expects the global LNG market to tighten this year as market demand continues to outpace supply.

In its Global LNG Market Overview 2013-14 report, the company expected global LNG demand to grow at an annual rate of 5% to 2025, twice as fast as for gas overall.

New LNG trains in Australasia with combined capacity of 67 million tonnes per annum, including BG Group’s QCLNG project on Gladstone’s Curtis Island, represent the start of the industry’s next major wave of production, it said.

But the outlook for 2014 was for only a modest increase in global supply, and overall performance would depend on unplanned outages and declines in output from existing plants.

BG Group vice president of global LNG Andrew Walker said limited supply growth in 2013, the prospect that overall production would remain stalled in 2014 and strong demand growth in Asia suggested the global LNG market would continue to tighten.

“Reflecting the tight underlying market, we expect LNG spot prices, assuming normal weather, to remain robust through 2014,” Dr Walker said.

“In fact, we believe the global LNG market will be tighter for longer than many assume, until the end of the decade at least.”

Dr Walker said that, in addition to the weather and the potential for European LNG imports to hit bottom, the industry will keep a close watch in 2014 on the rate of gas and LNG demand growth in China, the operational performance of LNG suppliers and the return of nuclear units in Japan.

Source: http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/global-lng-market-expected-tighten-year/2203510/