The share of natural gas in primary energy consumption worldwide will rise from 23% in 2022 to 26% in 2050. This will be caused by, among other things, growing demand in the power industry, where gas will help balance renewable energy sources amid the gradual phasing out of coal: the GECF estimates that the share of coal in the global energy mix will drop from 27% in 2022 to 11% in 2050. In recent decades, the transition from coal to gas has been observed in the United States, where the share of coal-fired TPPs in power generation fell from 52% to 16%, with gas rising from 16% to 42%.
However, the U.S. is a major gas exporter, whereas the growth of gas use in the power industries of importing countries will largely depend on the accessibility of LNG. According to Global Energy Monitor, in the coming years new export capacities will be brought into operation in the U.S., Qatar, Australia, Russia and a number of African countries (Nigeria, Mauritania and Mozambique), while two-thirds of new LNG regasification terminals will be provided by the countries of East and South Asia. These include not only China and India, but also the Philippines, Pakistan, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The GECF expects annual LNG imports in South and East Asia to increase by more than 300 billion cubic meters by 2050, which is more than half the current volume of global LNG imports.
Fertilizer production will continue to drive gas demand growth as well. As with the power industry, the role of this segment has been conspicuous over the past two decades. For instance, global consumption of nitrogen fertilizers (including ammonia and urea), which are produced using natural gas, rose by 33% between 2000 and 2022, reaching 109.3 million tons. According to the International Fertilizer Association (IFA), the overall increase in demand reached 27.2 million tons, of which one-third came from India, whose population grew by more than 300 million people during that period.
Another major driver will be maritime transport, where tightening environmental regulations have already caused an increase in LNG demand: while there were only 15 LNG bunkering vessels worldwide in 2019, their number reached 55 by February 2024, according to Rystad Energy. The ban on the use of fuel with a sulfur content of more than 0.5% in international maritime transport, which came into force in 2020, played a key role in that regard.
