This global LNG market data-base tabulates the details of over 300 offtake contracts across the LNG industry, tracking buyers, sellers, facilities, contract durations and destination flexibility. And by extension, this shows what portion of the market was traded “spot”.
Back in the year 2000, the global LNG market was just 100MTpa, c90% of the market was traded on long-term contractions with >10-years’ duration, and the weighted average cargo was on a 22-year contract.
By 2021, the LNG market had almost quadrupled to over 370MTpa. c55% is still sold on >10-year contracts. Conversely, c45% was traded on a short-term basis, of which c20pp were portfolio cargoes, c3% were sold on 1-10 year contracts, c1% was imported on a contract then re-exported, and c20pp was totally uncontracted and sold on a spot basis.
What has not changed is that facilities still tend to sell their initial output on >15-year long-term contracts, to de-risk their financing. Full data on individual contracts, which can be added by country or supplier, are given in the data-file.
To read our recent commentary on the LNG market, please see the article here. For our insights about LNG in the energy transition, see our article here.