At the FLAME 2025 conference in Amsterdam, RBAC’s COO, James Brooks and Director Dr. Ning Lin, discussed the state of the energy transition, geopolitics and the role natural gas and LNG will play in a lower carbon future. Dr. Lin spoke on ‘With limited upside for global LNG demand in 2024-25, will LNG continue to play the pivotal role for energy security?’ as well as participated in panel discussions covering LNG supply and gas flows in Europe.
Below are some of their key takeaways from FLAME 2025:
- The long-term outlook for global gas and LNG markets is being reshaped by an evolving mix of geopolitical pressures, shifting trade policies, and emerging demand from major players like China. With new variables stacking atop long-standing uncertainties — from Russian gas flows to global tariff regimes — scenario planning has never been more critical. As noted in a recent article, “In a world where gas trade patterns are shifting quickly, planning with rigid assumptions is a recipe for missteps.” Strategy includes robust market modeling to account for volatility and lends more certainty to actions.
- LNG will continue to be an important part of the European energy mix and U.S. LNG will play a vital role in filling that need. Laszlo Varro, Vice President of Strategy Insights & Scenarios at Shell, indicated that Europe will need LNG for years to come. However, securing long-term LNG contract commitments could be a challenge.
- More interest in Natural Gas and Nuclear and less interest in Hydrogen. This could signal that the winds are shifting, and the form of the energy transition may be quite different than what was originally thought. That said, Tudor Constantinescu, the Principal Advisor to the Director General for energy in the European Commission, mentioned that the EU plans to maintain their same emissions reduction targets.
- US LNG projects face rising cost pressures, especially on capex. While supply is ample, the real question is price—and what buyers are willing to pay.
- Emerging markets like India are adapting quickly, showing greater willingness to pay for cleaner fuels and electrification, while also working to unlock latent demand through domestic pipeline expansion.
- US LNG remains uniquely competitive with transparent pricing (Henry Hub), a range of business models, and strong accessibility for global buyers.
- As the U.S. becomes an increasingly pivotal supplier in the global LNG chain, we cannot fully understand global price and flow dynamics without also understanding how U.S. gas production, infrastructure, and contracts behave under rising cost pressure and gas-on-gas competition between domestic gas and export needs.
Further reading:
- Who Will Benefit from the U.S.-China LNG Trade Disruption?
- To Be or Not to Be – Russian LNG Revisited
- The Double Prime Mover: Electricity Runs the Future, But Natural Gas Keeps It Running
- LNG’s Role in a Realistic Energy Transition
- Is Natural Gas the Future for India and Sri Lanka?
- Rethinking Energy Demand Through 2050: Review of the EIA Annual Energy Outlook 2025
How can you navigate uncertainty in the natural gas and LNG market?
Contact us today for a free demonstration of how RBAC’s market simulation tools, GPCM® Market Simulator for North American Gas and LNG™ and G2M2® Market Simulator for Global Gas and LNG™, can greatly augment your analysis capabilities.
RBAC is the market-leading supplier of global and regional gas and LNG market simulation systems used by the energy industry and related government agencies for over two decades. The GPCM® Market Simulator for North American Gas and LNG™ is the most widely used natural gas market simulation system in North America. RBAC’s G2M2® Market Simulator for Global Gas and LNG™ has been instrumental in understanding evolving global gas and LNG market dynamics and is vital to fully grasp and leverage the interrelationship between the North American and global gas markets.
