SPIGF-2021. Forum participants discussed how the development of the LNG market responds to the key population demands
Today, the LNG market attracts a lot of attention and is a promising area of development. This is due to the fact that the world’s population is growing, the volume of production is increasing, which requires additional energy. This topic was discussed on the first day of PIGF-2021 at the round table on the key directions of development of the liquefied natural gas market.
Pavel Sarafannikov, President and Chairman of the Board of the National LNG Association, made an opening speech to the participants of the event.
The speaker noted that today the LNG market attracts a lot of attention and is a promising area of development. This is due to the fact that the world's population is growing, the volume of production of all kinds of goods and products is increasing, and this requires additional energy. “There is a demand in society today for energy and at the same time for solving environmental problems, and LNG fully responds to it. Industrial groups that want to open production facilities and build plants are also interested in the development of the LNG market. We also see the state's interest in this industry. All this confirms the good long-term prospects of market development,” noted Pavel Sarafannikov.
The LNG industry is one of the rapidly developing industries, which is confirmed not only by large projects in this area (in Yamal, Sakhalin) but also by a large number of projects of medium- and small-scale LNG production, underlined Alexander Klimentiev, Chief Adviser of the Investment and Innovation Policy Department of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Expert of the National LNG Association. According to his data, today the volume of declared projects in this industry exceeds 250 million tons, which shows the interest of the gas resources owners. Alexander Klimentiev believes that the most urgent issues in the sphere of LNG development are stimulation of projects in this field, in particular, organization of free access to resources and fields for all the interested parties as well as transition to low-carbon production technologies. “A low carbon footprint today is an important prerequisite for product access to global markets. Russian companies are actively engaged in this. The maximum possible carbon footprint threshold today is 160 kg per ton, and many Russian projects successfully meet these requirements and even exceed them,” said Alexander Klimentiev.
Mikhail Smirnov, President of the Association of Innovative Enterprises in the Energy Sector EnergoInnovatsiya, Doctor of Political Science, also spoke about the importance of the new green course. “Today, ESG principles are replacing the return on investment criteria. It is important that without ESG, return on investment is not possible at all,” he stressed.
Sergei Kapitonov, a gas analyst at the Center for Energy at the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management, spoke about current trends on global gas markets. According to his estimates, the main Russian LNG export markets in the coming years will be China, South and Southeast Asia. “India, Bangladesh, Vietnam show phenomenal demand for liquefied natural gas, in Southeast Asia the demand has grown by 120 million tons over the past 10 years and will increase another 1.5 times in the next 20 years,” believes Sergei Kapitonov. He is sure that Russian companies need to increase their presence in these markets, which is especially important in the light of the projected shortage of LNG in the next 5–7 years (these are the consequences of the decline in investor activity in this area in the pandemic years 2020-2021).
Alexander Klimentiev is sure that LNG can be widely used in the Russian domestic market as well. He considers alternative gasification of the Far East, Kamchatka, the Magadan Region, and the Arctic Zone, as well as the transfer of cargo transport operating on routes in the European part of Russia to gas fuel to be one of the most promising areas of sales.
Learn all news of the anniversary 10th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum on the website gas-forum.ru
The Forum will work from October 5–8, 2021.