Believe it or not, the current LNG overhang has been two decades in the making. Before 2010, North America was supposed to become the holy sanctuary of LNG imports. Domestic production was slipping, gas fields were looking tired, and shale was still the fever dream of a few madmen grinning at rocks somewhere out in the prairie. Then the lunatics cracked the code — and suddenly, North America didn’t need LNG anymore. Just like that, one of the world’s big promised markets evaporated.
But LNG had already been gearing up. Projects were sanctioned, infrastructure was underway, and capacity was building toward a future that no longer existed. The stage was set for an embarrassing glut. And then the gods of energy chaos intervened: Fukushima happened. Nuclear died overnight, Japan panicked, and the largest LNG importer on Earth turned into a gravitational singularity — a black hole for gas. Every spare molecule was sucked toward Tokyo.
That miracle didn’t just mop up the existing overhang; it lit the fuse under a manic construction boom. More LNG projects were sanctioned, more terminals were planned, more capacity rushed toward the market. But LNG is slow: these projects take years, sometimes a decade, to come to life. So the great supply wave was always going to arrive eventually; it was simply delayed.
Then Japan cooled down again. The panic fatigue faded, the nuclear retreat softened, and that giant, desperate vacuum calmed. Suddenly we had an even bigger looming overhang on the horizon. But LNG got lucky yet again. China happened — its voracious appetite thundered through global demand like a planet devouring comet tails. The “China sucking sound” drowned out every sensible warning that this all looked disturbingly like a slow-motion Ponzi scheme built on stacked assumptions of eternal crises.
And now? After twenty years of avoidance, miracles, and conveniently timed disasters, the chickens finally look ready to come home and start pecking at the mess. The supply wave isn’t theoretical anymore; it’s arriving, and no one can pretend otherwise.Will the disappearance of Russian pipeline gas gift LNG yet another miraculous reprieve? Maybe. The industry has survived on improbable strokes of luck before. But betting policy, capital, and energy security on perpetual divine intervention is not strategy — it’s desperation dressed up as planning.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/LNG-Supply-Expands-Faster-Than-Chinas-Demand-Growth.html