South Korea’s 2019 LNG Imports are Expected to Fall Around 9% YOY

South Korea’s imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are set to fall over the next five years after reaching record volumes in 2018, squeezed by the start-up of new long-planned nuclear and coal power plants.

The decline comes despite the country’s efforts to move to cleaner forms of energy and reduce the use of coal, and is likely to cut spot purchases of LNG cargoes from suppliers such as Qatar, Australia and the United States.

South Korea, the world’s third-biggest LNG importer, has increased its purchases of the super-chilled fuel since 2015, reaching a record 44 million tonnes last year.

However, already this year nuclear power generation has rebounded as some plants have come back on line, while a new plant began operations in August and another will start up at year-end.

Further out, three more large nuclear reactors are due to come online by 2024, while seven large coal-fired power plants are set to start operations by 2022, according to data from Korea Power Exchange.

South Korea’s 2019 LNG imports are expected to fall around 9% year-on-year, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie and remain low for some years.

“As we move through the early 2020s, LNG will come under pressure in the power sector as new coal-fired power capacity starts up and imports will fall towards 36 million tonnes per annum (mmtpa)” said Lucy Cullen, senior analyst at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

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