(World Oil)– Global supply of liquefied natural gas is set to surge the most since 2019 next year, primarily driven by production additions in North America, the International Energy Agency said.
The increase in supply will accelerate to 7%, or 40 billion cubic meters a year in 2026, following a 5.5% expansion this year, the IEA said in its quarterly gas market report. A project in Qatar will also add to the growth.
“This is expected to somewhat ease market fundamentals and eventually contribute to a stronger demand growth,” said Gergely Molnar, a gas analyst at the IEA, during a webinar. “2026 will be marking the first year of the LNG wave and it will be also in a way a test how demand responds to the stronger growth, especially in Asia.”
Since the energy crisis in 2022 — when Europe lost most pipeline flows from Russia — countries across the globe have competed for a relatively tight pool of global LNG supply. The IEA expects higher production of the fuel will help drive record demand for gas next year, especially in price-sensitive Asian markets, as well as in Africa and the Middle East.
LNG’s role in industry and power generation has grown, and trade already picked up this year amid substantial supply additions, which were around 60% higher than in 2024. LNG Canada recently started exports, and most of the additional global flows are being absorbed in Europe which is rushing to fill its storage sites for next winter.
Qatar’s North Field East LNG expansion project is set to start operations in the middle of next year, “although much of its expected upside will spill into 2027,” the IEA said in the report.
For the rest of 2025, however, the IEA cautioned that the market remains vulnerable to shocks.
“While new liquefaction projects are set to bring further incremental volumes to market in the second half of the year, any unexpected hiccups in the start-up and ramp-up schedules of these plants would effectively tighten the global LNG balance,” it said.
