The changing landscape of world gas markets at the horizon 2020

Abstract

The global natural gas market is undergoing substantial changes by 2020. Therefore, studying these changes and their impacts is of high importance. In this study, a mixed complementarity model is used to simulate the global natural gas market for 2020. Further, scenarios on the key changes in the future natural gas system are defined and their impact investigated. In particular, shale gas developments as well as new transmission capacities are investigated. The results of simulation show that, the U.S. as a new LNG supplier can considerably affect the global natural gas market. In this case, a reduction of 20% on LNG wholesale prices with respect to 2015 is observed. This may lead to higher natural gas consumption in LNG dependent countries. In additions, results of simulation indicate that, setting up new transmission infrastructure as well as new pipelines within Europe, will not influence the wholesale prices.