PRICE-sensitive importing markets for liquefied natural gas in Asia have been described as "virtually locked out" of new supply until 2025 and beyond as European demand fuels a prolonged high-price outlook, sources said. Panellists and attendees in conversation with Upstream during the World LNG Summit & Awards event in Athens, Greece, claimed that the price evolution that affected LNG markets, driven by surging European demand, is producing a scenario where a number of Asia-region importers will continue to be priced out of supply in the medium term. "Emerging markets [will] most likely have no realistic access to LNG in 2023, 2024 and 2025," International Finance Corporation principal industry specialist Alan Townsend said during a panel discussion last Friday. He added that it will be in the "back half of the 2020s when we'll see more supply reaching emerging markets". As prices surged in 2022 and Europe turned from an LNG sink to a premium market, as Patrick Dugas, vice president of LNG trading at TotalEnergies Gas & Power, described the shift, Asian LNG demand fell off a cliff as a result. "Europe used to be last resort market. It has switched to a premium market. This will reshuffle all of our industries," he said. "You'll see a kind of beauty contest between Asia and Europe for where the LNG cargo will go."
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