China will remain the world's largest LNG buyer by 2024-25 according to IEA

Keisuke Sadamori, a director at the International Energy Agency, said that China will remain the top LNG buyer in the world this year and the next due to strong industrial demand.

China, which is the second largest economy in the world after the U.S.A., overtook Japan last year as the top LNG buyer, as Japanese demand has been falling due to nuclear reactor restarts and the introduction of renewable energy.

Sadamori, a Japanese journalist who spoke at a conference on Monday in Hiroshima, said that the demand for natural gas in China has risen by 10% over the first eight-month period of this year. It is expected to grow by 16% from 2023 by 2025.

Sadamori stated that "China's strong domestic demand growth will drive its energy imports to record highs in both 2024 and 2025. This will solidify China's position as the largest LNG market in the world."

China is a producer of its own natural gas. It also imports it through pipelines and receives LNG at terminals.

According to Sadamori, the IEA predicts that India's gas demand will increase by almost 9% in this year and 8% by 2025. This is due to both a growing energy demand for economic growth as well as a strong gas consumption by the transport sector.

The future of Russian Gas Transit by Ukraine is a major uncertainty before this winter. As the Russian gas contract with Ukraine expires this year, he added that no new transit agreement could result in higher LNG imports for Europe by 2025, and a tighter global balance of gas as a consequence. (Reporting and editing by Christian Schmollinger; Yuka Obayashi and Katya Glubkova)

(source: Reuters)