Final statistical report of LNG imports by the three Asian big markets i.e. Japan, China and S. Korea, which are also the world’s top LNG buyers in 2017, indicates that Australia has steadily overtaken Qatar as top supplier to these markets.
Last year, Japan saw insignificant LNG imports growth while S. Korea and China have imported more LNG.

Share of Australian LNG in the world’s big trio markets has considerably increased from 19% in 2015 to 31% in 2017 as it supplied more than 50 MMT of LNG to these countries, up 27.7% YoY.
Meanwhile, share of Qatari LNG in the world’s big trio markets has decrease from 23% in 2015 to 18% in 2017 as it supplied about 29 MMT of LNG to these countries, down 6.2% YoY.
“With start-up of the under-construction LNG projects in Australia (Ichthys, Wheatstone and Prelude), share of the country in the trio big markets will be increased as they are the main target markets for theses project,” Mosi Nabi Senior Consultant at Global LNG Info said, adding that “it seems that Qatari LNG producers are shifting their target markets from the big but glut markets to the emerging albeit shaky markets like Pakistan and Bangladesh.”

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