Outlook 2024: The importance of US LNG in transforming the global market

US LNG has been a key driver in linking Asian, European and Latin American spot cargoes

The re-emergence of the US as an LNG exporter in March 2016 greatly accelerated the linking of global gas markets that had previously priced on their own supply-demand fundamentals. The addition of large volumes of freely divertible LNG supply to the global mix, in contrast to the mostly destination-restricted supply that had gone before, meant that traders could quickly close arbitrage opportunities between the largest global LNG import markets. A cold winter in Asia (like in 2017–18) or a drought in Brazil (like in 2021) would result in European firms with US offtake diverting their supply to higher-priced markets. And when Russia weaponised its pipeline gas exports to Europe following (ar