LNG Canada has shipped its first cargo from Kitimat on the west coast of Canada, a milestone for Canada’s first large-scale LNG project, Shell announced on Monday.
LNG imports into China, the world’s top buyer of the super-chilled fuel, continue to be weaker than the prior-year month for the eighth consecutive month in June, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg.
China is on track to import about 5 million tons of LNG this month, per Kpler’s data. This volume, if confirmed, would be a 12% decline compared to June last year.
Oil and the security of its supply have stolen the media spotlight in the context of the new Middle East war, and with good reason. Ever since Israel first bombed Iran, diesel prices have soared, jet fuel prices have soared, and importers have been troubled. For Europe, the situation is even worse due to natural gas.
Mexican firm Ursus Energy has received the concession for the Coatzacoalcos II development hub, enabling it to proceed with a planned LNG plant focused on exports to the Americas and Europe, the company said on Monday.
Cheniere is planning further brownfield expansions in phases at both terminals, potentially increasing capacity to approximately 75 million tpy by the early 2030s. The company is following a capital allocation programme that calls for USD 20 billion in capital deployments by 2026.
Once LNG Canada becomes fully operational, natural gas exports to the United States are expected to decline as more gas is directed to the liquefaction trains on Canada’s West Coast. There are also two smaller LNG export facilities under construction there, which will further squeeze exports to the south in the future. Woodfibre LNG and Cedar LNG are scheduled for completion between 2027 and 2028.
Meanwhile, one of the funders of the project, the UK government, was earlier this year reported to be looking for a way to get out of its investment commitment, in line with its net-zero policies. Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that the UK Export Finance agency had commissioned a human right review for the project on allegations of abuse, made by Mozambican soldiers that were deployed to protect the facility.
Energy Transfer has signed a 20-year deal with Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Company to supply up to 1 million tpy of LNG from its Lake Charles LNG facility, the company said Thursday.
The first liquefaction train from the North Field east expansion project will start production by mid-2026. “As for North Field West, it is in the engineering phase and will be going into the construction phase somewhere in 2027”, Al-Kaabi, who is also Qatar’s energy affairs minister, told the World Gas Conference in Beijing, as quoted in a statement from QatarEnergy.
Speaking at an industry event in Paris, GIIGNL President Anne-Sophie Corbeau noted that although long-term fundamentals remain strong, short- to medium-term demand projections are increasingly difficult to pin down due to volatile pricing, geopolitical fragmentation, and uneven economic recoveries in key Asian markets. GIIGNL’s annual report, also released today, underscores that while global LNG imports reached 405 million tonnes in 2024 — up from 401 million in 2023 — growth is slowing, and regional dynamics are diverging.