Qatar accounted for a lion's share (28.2mn tonnes) of the 37.1mn tonnes of LNG traded between Middle East and Asia-Pacific in 2021, according to International Gas Union (IGU). Globally, Middle East and Asia-Pacific had the third largest LNG trade flow last year, IGU said in its ‘World LNG report 2022’.
There were also significant flows from the Middle East to Asia (34.5mn tonnes), mostly driven by volumes from Qatar and the UAE to India, China and Pakistan. The largest global LNG trade route continues to be intra-Asia Pacific trade (81.9mn tonnes), driven mainly by continued growth in exports from Australia to Japan (26.8mn tonnes), South Korea (9.7mn tonnes) and Chinese Taipei (6.3mn tonnes).
Most of the remaining supply out of the Asia Pacific region ended up in Asia in 2021, as was the case in 2020, IGU noted. The region saw the second-largest LNG trade flow in 2021 (49mn tonnes), with 31mn tonnes going from Australia to China alone.
African exports mostly flowed to Europe and Asia (23.6mn tonnes and 11.3mn tonnes respectively) where exports increased by +1.2mn tonnes and +1.7mn tonnes respectively, due to increased exports from Egypt, Algeria, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
European imports from Africa had to compete with imports from the US, which meant a reduction in flows. While India continued to be a large customer of African LNG in 2021, flows from Africa to India decreased by 2.4mn tonnes compared to 2020, with India taking more volumes from Qatar instead, IGU said.
Imports into Asia Pacific from Africa increased, however, to 5.4mn tonnes in 2021 from 3.7mn tonnes in 2020, mostly driven by an increase in flows from Egypt into Japan (+0.1mn tonnes), South Korea (+0.1mn tonnes), Chinese Taipei (+0.1mn tonnes) and Singapore (+0.3mn tonnes).
This coincided with the restart of the Damietta LNG plant in Egypt in March 2021, which led to an increase in export volumes from Egypt to Asia Pacific. Imports to Latin America increased significantly last year, with Brazil being the key driver.
The largest increase in LNG flows into Latin America came from North America (+126.8%, +6.5mn tonnes) and the Middle East (+159.2%, +1.0mn tonnes). Flows from North America mostly went into Europe (21.5mn tonnes, up from 18.5mn tonnes in 2020) and Asia Pacific (18.2mn tonnes, up from 12.7mn tonnes in 2020).
A large share of US exports into Europe went to Spain (3.8mn tonnes), the Netherlands (3.2mn tonnes), the UK (2.9mn tonnes) and France (2.9mn tonnes). Most of the additional exports from the US into Asia Pacific went into South Korea (8.7mn tonnes) and Japan (7.1mn tonnes) due to favourable netbacks in the winter months of 2021.
