Shell Projects 65% LNG Demand Growth by 2050 as Hormuz Crisis Stalls 2026 Trade
Shell's bullish long-range LNG outlook collides with a near-term market disrupted by the Strait of Hormuz crisis, which has halted the record growth pace set in 2025.
ICE Endex TTF front-month gas rose 3.41% to €75.83/MWh on Tuesday (2026-09-08), pushing European gas to its highest in recent sessions on supply concerns tied to ongoing Middle East disruption. The move sits awkwardly beside Shell's annual LNG Outlook, which projects demand growing 65% by 2050 from 2025 levels but acknowledges that growth this year has already stalled because of the Strait of Hormuz crisis.4
South and Southeast Asian gas demand is the main driver Shell is counting on for that long-term growth. But the same Hormuz disruption slowing 2026 trade is testing how reliably Asian buyers can access seaborne supply, and at what cost.4
Global LNG trade reached a record 437 million tonnes in 2025, up 6.3%, the strongest annual growth since 2022, the International Gas Union reported in its World LNG Report 2026, published on Tuesday (2026-07-07). That momentum has since hit an abrupt interruption.5
JKM spot, the Asian LNG benchmark, was flat at $24.02/MMBtu on Tuesday (2026-09-08). Geopolitical risk weighs bearishly on the prompt Asian contract, traders said, even as Shell's structural demand story remains intact over the longer term. [live prices, contrarian signals]
Shell's own forecast range is wide enough to carry real uncertainty. Its LNG Outlook projects demand growth of 54% to 68% by 2040, expanding to as much as 85% by 2050 in an upside case, the Motley Fool reported in June (2026-06-09). The spread reflects how much the outcome depends on coal displacement rates across Asia and the pace at which new import infrastructure gets built.2
The company's history with this forecast provides some grounding. When Shell launched its annual LNG outlook in 2017, global trade stood at 264 million tonnes. By the time of the latest report, it had risen to 422 million tonnes, an increase of around 60%. China's LNG imports climbed roughly 250% over the same period, and the number of countries importing LNG rose from 36 to 49, Energy Voice reported from the Shell briefing on June 30 (2026-06-30).3
Supply responded to that demand pull in 2025. Some 68.4 million tonnes per annum of liquefaction capacity reached final investment decision last year, making it the strongest year for project approvals since 2019. IGU data show the five-year investment cycle sanctioned 206 Mtpa of new capacity in total.5
American exporters drove most of that growth. The United States supplied 93% of global LNG export growth in 2025, Forbes reported in July (2026-07-19). US LNG cargoes can be redirected in transit, making American volumes a swing supplier when European TTF prices pull Asian-bound shipments westward — and Tuesday's (2026-09-08) TTF move may be drawing exactly that kind of reallocation.6
Qatar remains the supply wildcard. Iranian missile strikes on Qatari LNG infrastructure, reported by Insider Monkey in May (2026-05-25), added uncertainty to the market's second-largest exporter. The IGU noted in its July (2026-07-07) report that infrastructure damage and heightened price volatility have exposed LNG buyers to challenges that long-term contracts were not built to handle.1,5
The IEA estimated in a 2025 report that greenhouse gas output from global LNG supply reached around 350 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2024, roughly 25% lower in intensity than the coal it displaces across most energy use cases. That comparison sits at the center of the demand-growth case in Asia, where governments are weighing coal against gas-fired generation without large domestic storage options.3
China is the largest single variable in the 2050 calculation. Its LNG imports have risen roughly 250% since Shell published its first annual outlook in 2017. Any deceleration from domestic production gains, expanded pipeline imports, or Hormuz-related supply shortfalls would push the outcome toward the lower end of Shell's already wide forecast band without requiring a change in global energy policy.3,5
The 206 Mtpa sanctioned in the past five years will reach the market on schedule. Whether Chinese and other Asian buyers sign new long-term offtake agreements while Hormuz risk persists, at prices that justify another round of liquefaction FIDs, is now the variable the forward curve cannot yet price.5