ВЛИЯНИЕ ФАКТОРА ПАНДЕМИИ COVID-19 НА РАЗВИТИЕ МИРОВОГО РЫНКА СЖИЖЕННОГО ПРИРОДНОГО ГАЗА

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a downturn in almost all sectors of the global economy. The energy sector did not escape this fate either, first causing a sharp decline in global demand for energy resources, and then its «recovery surge», which led to a sharp rise in prices. The spread of coronavirus infection has had a particularly strong impact on the conjuncture of the world market of liquefied natural gas, fluctuations in free world prices for which forced us to talk about both the energy crisis, and even about «energy wars», and the beginning of a «new world energy cycle». In the context of a pandemic, the state of the global liquefied natural gas market, together with the oil market, remains the most important factor for assessing the prospects for the development of the entire global economy. It should be borne in mind that the demand for LNG is more stable than the demand for oil, since LNG, among other things, is used to generate electricity, which makes its stable supply critical for any economy. The events of autumn 2021 once again demonstrated the high sensitivity of the markets to its reduction, creating a very tense situation in Europe on the eve of the winter heating season. The short-sighted policy of the EU governing bodies, which relied on the spot market to the detriment of long-term interstate agreements, also played a significant role in the emergence of the crisis situation. The fight against coronavirus has only worsened the situation with prices, increasing their volatility in the conditions of the actual absence of swing suppliers on the market. As a result, the prospects for stabilizing the LNG market, primarily the European one, remain very uncertain. This article examines the relationship between the main parameters of the global LNG market in the conditions of the spread of coronavirus infection, analyzes the factors that determine the dynamics of changes in global LNG production volumes, their impact on supply and demand parameters, as well as the price conjuncture of the global LNG market.