Global gas consumption is expected to fall slightly in 2022 due to the war in Ukraine, which is likely to dampen demand growth for years to come, the IEA said on Tuesday.
“Global natural gas consumption is projected to decline slightly in 2022 and grow slowly over the next three years as the war in Ukraine pushes up prices and stokes fears of prolonged supply disruptions,” according to a quarterly report from the International Energy Agency .
As a result of this new geopolitical situation, global gas demand is “expected to increase by a total of 140 billion cubic meters (bcm) between 2021 and 2025”, i.e. “less than half of the previously forecast total and less than the 170 billion cubic meter increase for that alone.” observed in 2021,” marked by a recovery in the global economy that was paralyzed by the COVID pandemic in 2020, notes the IEA.
A brake for the next few years, which is “essentially” due to the weaker economy and a lower switch from coal and oil to gas. “Only a fifth” of that growth slowdown is due to improved energy efficiency and a shift from gas to renewables, the report says.
This result underscores “the need to accelerate the clean energy transition,” according to the IEA.
With prices “inevitably rising as countries around the world compete for LNG supplies,” Keisuke Sadamori, director of markets and energy security at the IEA, believes that “the most sustainable response to the current global energy crisis is to step up efforts and Strategies to use energy more efficiently and accelerate the transition to clean energies such as biogas, biomethane and green hydrogen.
This would help calm price increases and “give emerging markets easier access to supplies that could help improve carbon intensity and air quality in the near term,” according to the IEA.
Conversely, “Europe’s growing pressure to replace Russian gas with liquefied natural gas (LNG), coupled with a ‘limited’ global ability to increase LNG exports, increases the risk” of tensions in the market, the report concludes.