DOHA — A rapid surge in supply this decade will bring stress to the global liquefied natural gas market, the head of LNG at global trader Vitol said on Wednesday, in the form of downward pressure on prices. “It’s an unprecedented increase in supply that we are seeing, from 2024 to 2030 - more than 50% of additional supply, and this is going to bring some stress to the market,” Pablo Galante Escobar told the LNG2026 conference in Doha, Qatar. LNG coming online between 2026 and 2029 has raised concerns of a supply glut that could depress prices, with projects like Golden Pass LNG on the U.S. Gulf Coast and Qatar’s North Field Expansion expected to contribute sizeable volumes. Escobar’s remarks mirrored those of Cristian Signoretto, director for global gas and LNG at Italian energy major Eni, earlier on Wednesday. Signoretto said he expected additional LNG supply to further soften prices in 2027 into 2028, although project delays remained a risk. Signoretto expected the LNG market to stay finely balanced this year due to thin supply buffers, low European inventories and recovering Asian demand. Supply gut could turn into a deficit on AI demand Still, growing electricity demand from AI and data centers, along with rising fuel use in Asia and European gas needs, could turn an expected LNG supply glut into a shortage by 2030, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi said earlier this week. Energy executives at the event outlined a bullish long‑term outlook for LNG, although views differed on how far a wave of new supply would weigh on prices later this decade. Executives pointed to Asia as the main engine of future demand growth, despite the region’s LNG demand slipping in 2025 on price sensitivity and competition from alternative fuels. (Reporting by Emily Chow and Yousef Saba in Doha; Writing by Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Bernadette Baum)
