What Factors Influence Liquid Natural Gas Trade?

Abstract

Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is an important commodity that is continuing to grow in the amount of consumption being used across the world. LNG is natural gas that is turned to liquid. There were 293.1 million tonnes of LNG traded throughout the world. This represented a 35.2% increase over 2016 and continues to reach record trade levels year over year. Since 2002 there has been an increase of over 100% in exports of LNG. There are significant investments by the United States into the trade of LNG, these investments are expected to have the United States be the third highest exporter of LNG. The top five importers of LNG are from Asia and account for 68.3% of the market alone. There are many factors to consider when attempting to analyze this type of trade. These factors include bilateral trade of LNG imports and exports, gross domestic product, consumption, production, distance and price. The studying of trade involving LNG is a relatively new topic with limited data and research. The purpose of this paper is to continue to build upon past research and study the factors that affect LNG import and exports. We will accomplish this task by investigating the factors listed by using an empirical research. This will let us know the significance of the factors that impact the pattern of LNG trade. I expect some factors to have a stronger weight to the reasons why trade of LNG trade is increasing year over year.