Tuesday, September 29, 2020

"Could ESG Investing Disrupt The LNG Boom?"

That appears to be the plan for the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the World Wildlife Fund and a couple other two comma ($100,000,000+) budget groups.
I'm not sure where the Environmental Defense Fund is at these days, in the past they have been scolded by their pressure group brethren for sincerely believing natural gas was a 'bridge' or transition fuel.

It is tricky though. As I mentioned in 2012's "Sierra Club Battles Efforts to Export Natural Gas (LNG)":
The Sierra Club secretly took $26 mil. from #2 gas producer Chesapeake to fund its anti-coal campaign, while telling members it did not, then turned on NatGas.
I haven't pulled their last Form 990 but in 2010 their income was around $52 million meaning that CHK's 2007-2010 contributions were definitely meaningful.
"...Don't never, ever trust whitey."*...
Anyhoo, here's the headline story:
Global natural gas demand and within it, liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand, is set to grow in the long term, despite the setback in demand for all kinds of energy due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Coal-to-gas switching from North America to Europe and Asia, as well as increased use of natural gas in the industrial sector, will drive demand for LNG over the next two decades, analysts and the key players in the LNG market say.  

However, the expected growth in demand in LNG consumption through 2040 is not without risks, most of which have nothing to do with COVID-19 and its impact on the energy markets, Wood Mackenzie said in a recent analysis.

The ongoing drive toward clean technologies—much cleaner than natural gas—such as green hydrogen and carbon capture and storage utilization (CCSU), the increased weight of spot pricing on LNG trade, and the increased scrutiny of the carbon intensity of energy sources could drag LNG demand growth slowing down from current projections, WoodMac’s Massimo Di-Odoardo, Global Head of Gas Analysis, and Simon Flowers, Chairman and Chief Analyst, say.

COVID Hasn’t Wiped Out Long-Term LNG Demand  
Due to the pandemic, total global natural gas demand is expected to drop by 4 percent year over year in 2020, but return to growth as early as in 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the International Gas Union (IGU) say.

The cost-competitiveness of natural gas and the increased access to gas in developing countries are set to be the key drivers of higher gas demand in the medium term, especially for LNG, according to the Global Gas Report 2020 from August published by the IGU, research company BloombergNEF (BNEF), and Italian gas infrastructure firm Snam.

According to the IEA, the global LNG trade will jump to 585 bcm/y by 2025, up by 21 percent compared to 2019, thanks mostly to Asian consumers China and India, while the United States will account for almost all of the net growth on the export side.  
 
This year alone, despite the gloomy global gas demand outlook, China is set to raise its LNG imports by as much as 10 percent to new records, thanks to lower LNG prices and the faster-than-expected recovery in its industrial sector, analysts told Reuters last week....
....MUCH MORE