Coming surge in LNG production is set to reshape global gas markets
News
27 October 2025

New IEA medium-term outlook sees unprecedented expansion of liquefied natural gas capacity by 2030, with implications for energy security, demand and affordability

Global gas markets are set to undergo major changes by the end of this decade, with a coming wave of liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity set to transform market dynamics, according to the latest edition of the IEA’s medium-term outlook.

Gas 2025, out today, offers a comprehensive overview of potential supply, demand and trade trends in global natural gas markets for the coming years. It provides a thorough review of recent market developments ahead of the 2025-26 Northern Hemisphere winter and includes forecasts for how supply and demand could evolve to 2030.

According to the report, about 300 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year of LNG export capacity – a record – is set to be added by 2030, primarily supported by liquefaction capacity additions in the United States and Qatar. Over 80 bcm of annual LNG liquefaction capacity has been sanctioned in the United States year-to-date, an all-time high for the US LNG sector. This unprecedented worldwide expansion is expected to strengthen global supply security and ease market pressures following a period of tightness.

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… If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO₂ forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO₂ target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO₂ is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.

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Abstract
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change yields Charney (fast-feedback) equilibrium climate sensitivity 1.2 ± 0.3°C (2r) per W/m², which is 4.8°C ± 1.2°C for doubled CO₂. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full Cenozoic era—including ‘slow’ feedbacks by ice sheets and trace gases—supports this sensitivity and implies that CO₂ was 300–350 ppm in the Pliocene and about 450 ppm at transition to a nearly ice-free planet, exposing unrealistic lethargy of ice sheet models. Equilibrium global warming for today’s GHG amount is 10°C, which is reduced to 8°C by today’s human-made aerosols. Equilibrium warming is not ‘committed’ warming; rapid phaseout of GHG emissions would prevent most equilibrium warming from occurring. However, decline of aerosol emissions since 2010 should increase the 1970–2010 global warming rate of 0.18°C per decade to a post-2010 rate of at least 0.27°C per decade. Thus, under the present geopolitical approach to GHG emissions, global warming will exceed 1.5°C in the 2020s and 2°C before 2050. Impacts on people and nature will accelerate as global warming increases hydrologic (weather) extremes. The enormity of consequences demands a return to Holocene-level global temperature. Required actions include: (1) a global increasing price on GHG emissions accompanied by development of abundant, affordable, dispatchable clean energy, (2) East-West cooperation in a way that accommodates developing world needs, and (3) intervention with Earth’s radiation imbalance to phase down today’s massive human-made ‘geo-transformation’ of Earth’s climate. Current political crises present an opportunity for reset, especially if young people can grasp their situation.
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