The International Gas Union announced the release of the Global Gas Report 2023, produced in partnership with Snam and Rystad Energy.
According to the report, 2022 became the most turbulent year in the history of the gas industry, marked by unprecedented supply and price shocks. In 2023, as supply remains tight and demand outlook uncertain, the market entered an “unstable” equilibrium, remaining highly sensitive to any movements on either supply or demand side.
The energy trilemma has come into sharp focus when the world was reminded that energy security and affordability are necessary to stay on the course of the energy transition. Prior to the crisis, the policy focus was positively on sustainability; however, it was also deprioritising security and affordability, as those two seemed to be assured at the time, until they returned to become the priority in 2022.
Global gas demand decreased by 1.5% in 2022 compared to 2021, with large declines in Europe and Asia offset by strong growth in North America. Although
global demand dropped by 1.5% in 2022, regional demand destruction was a lot more pronounced. Europe’s gas demand decreased by almost 12% in 2022 year-on-year, in response to the supply and price shocks coming on the heels of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Furthermore, global gas production in 2022 stayed flat in comparison to 2021 with a marginal 8.3 Bcm uptick, which is less than a 0.5% increase year-on-year.
The first half of 2023 saw a mild revival in global gas supply, yet the final annual result remains uncertain. Looking back at 2022, curtailment of Gazprom’s output in Russia was offset by supply growth in North America, which grew from 1,160 Bcm to 1,213 Bcm, and in the Middle East, which grew from 670 Bcm in 2021 to 687 Bcm in 2022.
The commencement of the war in Ukraine in 2022 created a perfect storm causing gas prices to rise to the highest record ever, as the world struggled to allocate the scarce gas supply.
Gas prices experienced multiple record spikes after the onset of the war and triggered a cascade of geopolitical and energy sector responses. The situation was further impaired with the explosion of the Nord Stream pipeline in September 2022.
Gas prices have cooled in 2023, largely due to demand-side adjustments in Europe and Asia, yet they remain above pre-covid and pre-energy crisis levels.
Remain above pre-covid and pre-energy crisis levels. The shortage of global supply, which was the key reason behind last year’s shocks, is still there: the market is in a state of a fragile and unstable equilibrium. This cooling has been driven by demand contraction, marginal supply growth and infrastructure debottlenecking.
LNG has been crucial in navigating through the gas market crisis, playing a key role in offsetting the shortage in Europe, with trade growing by 4%.
In the context of the globally tight LNG supply, while it was instrumental in keeping the lights on in Europe, the unaffordable prices left some countries in Asia in the dark. In 2022, Europe’s natural gas imports shifted from Russian pipelines towards LNG leading to a 69% increase in its LNG imports, reaching 124 million tonnes (169 Bcm) and making Europe the biggest importing market, absorbing a significant share of the global LNG volume by outbidding other customers. Roughly two thirds of the additional volumes (~30 million tonnes) came from the United States.
Total global energy CO2 emissions in 2022 continued an upward trajectory with a 1.1% yearly growth, reaching another record.
Emissions from combustion of natural gas saw a minor decline in 2022, totalling about 7.2 giga-tonnes CO2-e, partly attributed to price spikes which incentivised gas-to-coal and gas-to-oil switching. An all-time high in emissions from coal was reached at about 16.8 giga-tonnes of CO2-e, despite worldwide
initiatives to diminish dependency.
The acceleration of low carbon gaseous energy is an essential building block of the energy transition.
Abated natural gas with CCUS, green and blue hydrogen (including derivatives like clean ammonia), biomethane and e-methane, will play an increasingly significant role in an achievable and just transition, offering a viable decarbonisation option in many applications such as power generation, reactant/feedstock need, heating, and heavy transport, provided they are accessible in sufficient quantities and are cost-effective.
