Quarterly Gas Review – Issue 12
In this first OIES Gas Quarterly of 2021 we provide our usual review of global gas prices but more importantly highlight 10 key themes that we believe will be important in shaping the outlook for the global gas sector over the next 12 months. We provide an outlook for gas balances this year, with a focus on storage in Europe, while also analysing the prospects for gas demand and supply in China and considering the progress being made in the removal of coal from the European energy system. We also analyse the potential for Nord Stream 2 to finally be completed in 2021 and for first gas to flow. Further afield, we highlight that 2021 could be an important year for the deregulation of the gas market in Brazil, and we also consider a number of topics on the decarbonisation theme. We ask whether the imminent COP26 meeting will catalyse more concrete advances in decarbonisation in the gas sector, we consider the amount of regulation that is due to be passed in the EU to encourage action and we consider the development of carbon-neutral LNG as a new theme in the gas market. Finally, we also look at what the arrival of the new US administration under Joe Biden may mean for environmental policy and in particular for methane emissions.
