Dec 22, 2025 : Australia forces exporters to keep minimum amount for home market
Australia forces LNG exporters to keep a minimum amount for home market - Reuters
Australia to Require Up to a Quarter of New Gas for Local Market - Bloomberg
Russia LNG Exports to China Rise to Record, Surpassing Australia - Bloomberg
Australia Gas Market Review Report December 2025 - Government of Australia (PDF)
Technip Energies awarded a large authorization by Commonwealth LNG for key equipment purchase orders - Technip Energies
Baker Hughes to Supply Liquefaction Equipment for Commonwealth LNG Export Project - Baker Hughes
Japan placing high hopes on LNG project in western Canada - The Asahi Shimbun
European gas demand grew only during four months of 2025 - @ira_joseph via X
EIG Acquires a 49.87% Stake in Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TgP) - Business Wire
Government confirms plans for gas reservation on east coast - ABC Australia
How BP's new boss Meg O’Neill became the most powerful woman in fossil fuels - Bloomberg
PTTT Partners with Centrica to Strengthen Competitiveness in the Asian LNG Market - PTT
Oil’s geopolitical premium vanished in 2025 - and may not return - Reuters
LNG tanker Kunpeng loads cargo from Russian plant under sanctions - Reuters
Deutsche ReGas Markets Mandatory Short-Term Regasification Capacity in Mukran for July 2026 - Deutsche ReGas
Japan's largest nuclear power plant gets formal approval to restart - @SStapczynski via X
Russia's LNG Exports to China Rise to Record - @SStapczynski via X
Wärtsilä to divest its Gas Solutions business to Mutares SE & Co. KGaA - Wärtsilä
Saipem awarded an offshore EPCI contract in Qatar worth approximately 3.1 billion USD - Saipem
New Fortress Energy Extends Forbearance Agreement - Business Wire
Sens. Cruz, Kennedy Urge Trump Admin To Resist European Power Grab Threatening All American LNG Exports - Daily Caller
Why are Australians paying so much for gas – and will Labor’s new scheme bring down prices? - The Guardian
Alaska’s $44 billion bet on natural gas - Grist
US natural gas futures ease to 7-week low on warm weather outlook - Reuters
The energy crisis never ended in Europe - @SStapczynski via X
Amigo Leapfrogs Rival Saguaro in Mexico LNG Export Race - Energy Intelligence
‘A long time coming’: Labor launches landmark bid to slash energy bills, plug gas shortfalls - Sydney Morning Herald
Labor finally moves to bolster gas supply with reservation scheme - The Australian (subscription)
Australia Manufacturers hail scheme to reserve east coast gas - The Australian Financial Review (subscription)
The below is produced using an LNG Intelligence Engine, a structured analytical framework that tracks capital flows, project milestones, and market behavior across the global LNG value chain. The engine is designed to identify forward-looking risks and mismatches between investment activity and real-world demand signals before they are fully reflected in prices or consensus forecasts.
Demand Signals in December Do Not Match Capital Behavior
December’s LNG demand signals present a markedly different picture from the scale and direction of capital commitments observed across the same period. While capital is being deployed early, heavily, and with increasing rigidity, demand behavior remains cautious, conditional, and constrained. This disconnect is the defining tension of the month.
Demand in December Is Price-Constrained, Not Volume-Driven
Across Asia, buyer behavior in December consistently reflects clear price discipline. Procurement activity slows materially as spot prices approach the upper-$9 to $10/MMBtu range, with buyers showing a willingness to wait rather than chase cargoes. Imports continue, but largely through contracted volumes, opportunistic purchases on price dips, and re-exports when arbitrage allows.
There is little evidence of urgency or competitive bidding that would signal demand stress. Instead, buyers are acting as though supply will remain available — a posture that contrasts sharply with the scale of future capacity being financed.
European Demand Is Security-Oriented, Not Consumption-Led
European LNG demand in December continues to be shaped primarily by energy security considerations rather than rising underlying gas use. Import infrastructure keeps expanding, but utilization rates remain moderate, reflecting a system built for resilience rather than growth.
In practice, regasification capacity exceeds immediate needs, imports fluctuate with weather and storage strategy, and procurement decisions are heavily influenced by policy and contingency planning. This demand is real, but it functions as insurance and designed to prevent shortages, not to absorb surplus supply at progressively higher prices.
Structural Demand Offsets Are Becoming More Visible
Several core LNG-consuming regions are also showing structural factors that limit incremental demand growth. Nuclear restarts in Japan continue to displace gas-fired generation over time. Domestic gas production growth in parts of Asia reduces reliance on imported LNG. Efficiency gains and fuel substitution further moderate consumption growth.
These dynamics do not eliminate LNG demand, but they cap its upside, particularly when prices rise.
What Demand Is Not Signaling
Notably absent in December 2025 are the signals that typically precede sustained demand expansion. There has been no broad wave of buyer-led long-term offtake driven by consumption growth, no widespread industrial recovery translating into higher gas burn, and no competitive scramble for spot cargoes. Demand is present, but it is managed, selective, and highly price-aware.
The Capital–Demand Mismatch
Against this backdrop, capital behavior in December points in the opposite direction.
Capital is acting as if demand certainty will emerge later, even if current signals are muted. Delay is treated as preferable to cancellation, regardless of near-term utilization. Control over assets and strategic positioning is being prioritized over short-term efficiency.
The result is supply being locked in before buyers signal willingness to absorb it, infrastructure being built ahead of demonstrated need, and reduced flexibility if demand underperforms expectations.
Why This Matters
The mismatch between cautious demand and committed capital increases the risk of underutilized infrastructure, prolonged margin compression, and heightened volatility as new supply arrives into price-sensitive markets. December shows a market where capital is attempting to force convergence that demand has not yet agreed to.
Bottom Line
Demand in December is not collapsing — but it is not validating the scale or timing of capital commitments being made. That gap between capital conviction and demand restraint is the central risk signal emerging from the month, and it will shape LNG market dynamics well beyond the near term.