November 20, 2024

In 2024, global consumption of natural gas could grow by 2.3%. This was predicted according to the results of the Forum of Gas Exporting Countries (GECF), the Izvestia newspaper reports.

 

For the past nine months, natural gas consumption in the main consumer countries increased by 2.8 % year-on-year, up to 1.798 trillion cubic meters. The decline in the EU and the UK was offset by increased consumption in Asia and North America. Therefore, the GECF participants revised their initial forecast.

 

"This revision is primarily due to a faster-than-expected increase in gas consumption in key consumer countries, which taking together account for 60 % of global gas demand," the analysts added.

In September, the GECF expected consumption to grow by 1.5 %, in October - by 2.2 %. Now they have raised this estimate to 2.3 %. Next year, the increase in global consumption of natural gas is expected at the level of the current year - 2.3 - 2.5 %, suggested Lyudmila Rokotyanskaya, a "BCS World of Investments" expert on the stock market.

 

In January-August of this year, the main buyers of Russian gas in the European Union (EU) were France, Hungary and Spain. Russia has supplied 9 billion Euros worth of gas to the region, while this year the pipeline gas has again become Russia's main export. It accounted for 4.6 billion Euros, while the liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounted for 4.4 billion Euros. France became the main buyer - in eight months the country increased purchases by 30 %, to 1.9 billion Euros. Hungary dropped to the second place, reducing imports by almost a third, to 1.6 billion Euros. Spain rounded out the top three with imports for 1.4 billion Euros.

 

In September, the European Union paid 839.9 million Euros for Russian pipeline gas, which is the maximum amount of since February 2023. If compared with the August figures, and the increase was 30 %. Compared to September 2023, the amount increased by 36 %. Italy paid 315.5 million Euros, Hungary 219.6 million, Greece 166.9 million, and Slovakia 125.5 million Euros.

 

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