SINGAPORE—The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices will go down in the next five years, a development that could significantly benefit Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines.
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said the lower prices would be driven by a “huge amount of wave of LNG exports coming to markets” between 2026 and 2030. Birol made the comments during a briefing on the sidelines of the second day of the Singapore International Energy Week 2025.
“There is a new, very significant chapter starting in the history of LNG very soon. And this is important for all the countries, especially countries in this very region, because we have major LNG importers and also important LNG exporters,” Birol said.
He said that about 300 billion cubic meters (BCM) of new LNG capacity, “more or less equal to what the world has built in the last 30 years,” would enter the market in the next five to 10 years, coming from the United States, Canada, Australia and Qatar.
“Fifty percent of that will come to markets in the next five-to-10 years… So, this will change a lot of things in the region,” he said.
Birol said the region would shift from being a market of sellers to a market of buyers, putting downward pressure on LNG prices.
This is “good for the affordability for the countries in the region, good for their trade balance and good for their inflation numbers,” he said, suggesting that Singapore and other importing countries “may well benefit from this.” He urged countries planning to forge LNG contracts to look at the IEA data.
Birol said Asia should pursue energy security through diversification, including nuclear power. He advised countries to diversify the imports of energy, the traders and the companies.
He also suggested that countries with critical minerals like Indonesia such as nickel, rare earth metals or cobalt should not only mine them, but “more importantly, refine and process them.”
He said the energy transition, which differs from country to country, should be geared “towards safer, cleaner and affordable energy.”
He lauded the region’s “huge amount of renewables, especially solar, but also hydropower, geothermal, and others.”
Birol also welcomed many countries’ aspirations to use nuclear power, in both traditional power plants and upcoming small modular reactors.
