The Energy Exchange - Why is LNG vital to our energy future?
03/23/2026
As energy systems face geopolitical uncertainty and the challenge of reducing emissions, LNG is emerging as indispensable for maintaining energy supply. TotalEnergies is a major player in the LNG sector, particularly in the United States, where it is the number one exporter of U.S. LNG.
In this first episode of Energy Exchange, three experts share their insights on LNG:
- Delaram Hormozastarabady (Managing Director, Global LNG North America at TotalEnergies);
- Laurent Ruseckas (Executive Director, First Take Gas, Geopolitics, Finance at S&P Global Energy);
- Kenneth B. Medlock III (Senior Director at the Center for Energy Studies, Baker Institute)
[The world is using more energy than ever before]
Populations are growing, economies are growing, energy demand is growing.
[as energy systems face geopolitical uncertainty and the challenge of less emissions]
If the supply of energy is disrupted I can't run my factory, I can't heat my home so that supply chain is critical.
[Liquefied natural gas is becoming a fuel that keeps the lights on]
LNG allows for natural gas to be shipped across the world, that's something that we couldn't do before.
[The Energy Exchange]
[Why is LNG vital to our energy future?]
LNG stands for liquefied natural gas, which is essentially natural gas
[Liquefied Natural Gas]
that we cool down to very low temperatures so that it becomes a liquid.
[LNG occupies 1/600th Of natural gas’s volume]
You can fit 600 times as much LNG as you can fit methane so by doing this,
you can link, countries and regions that you couldn't link by pipeline.
[Enabling long distance transport]
All of this has evolved really since the onset of LNG back in the 1960s. To a market that is much deeper, much larger, enabling more connectivity of global markets.
[Global LNG demand is growing]
Natural gas represents today about a quarter of the world's energy mix.
[25% of global energy mix]
Last year, LNG, represented 13% of all the world's natural gas and globally, the traded volumes reached 400 million tons,
[400 million tons]
which is actually massive when you think about that this industry didn't exist a few decades ago. There’s about 24 countries that produce and export LNG. The traditional two giants were Australia and Qatar but the US is now the 800 pound gorilla of global LNG supply.
TotalEnergies is the number one exporter of U.S LNG,
[TotalEnergies ships 19 million tons of U.S. LNG]
shipping millions of tons annually to the rest of the world. We have Cameron LNG as one of our core assets here in the US where we are fully involved in the full chain of the company. So we're providing the gas, we have ownership in the liquefaction asset and added to that, the Rio Grande project, which is under construction today really puts TotalEnergies in a different league. The interesting thing about the United States is it brought a very different model into the global LNG market, effectively there's a transfer of title from the liquefier to the shipper and the shipper can then load that into their portfolio and move those cargoes wherever they want to. One of the key benefits of LNG for a buyer, is the flexibility. Depending on market conditions, depending on demand fluctuations, you can postpone or ramp up your LNG imports.
[Europe’s energy landscape Changed overnight]
Before Russia cut off the gas to Europe, LNG made up maybe 15-20% of European gas supply. Now that's changed, LNG is about 38%. A lot of LNG from the United States was able to redirect into Europe to keep the lights on. Europe is really not slowing down when it comes to their need and demand for LNG. Even though renewables are penetrating through the market,it's still not going to be enough.
[Asia accounted for around 64% of global LNG imports in 2025]
On the demand side, it's really Asia that is in the driver's seat. Countries like Japan, South Korea and China are the top three LNG importers in the world. They consume a huge amount of energy and they don't have the domestic resources to meet the demand. So LNG is really essential for them. For Asia, especially for the emerging parts of Asia and South Asia and Southeast Asia, gas is really part of the fuel for future growth.
[LNG is increasingly working alongside renewables To meet demand]
LNG is not really competing with renewables, it's actually enabling them. You need LNG to be able to stabilize the grid while we're scaling up on the renewables. It will take some time before we get there and the power grids need
[LNG offers reliability and flexibility]
the reliability and the flexibility that LNG offers in that regard.
[Together gas and renewables Make large-scale electrification possible]
Places like ERCOT here in Texas, for example, when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, you will see renewables occupy more than half of the generation mix. But you can't rely on that every single hour of every single day and so you need flexibility and redundancy built into the system. Gas is an amazing source of energy at providing that redundancy and flexibility. Gas really picks up the slack and it's able to do so in a highly economically efficient way. Data centers are a big growth area right now and that's why gas alongside renewables is kind of like the format, for the foreseeable future at least.
[LNG produces approximately 25% Less emissions than coal]
LNG today can really make it very easy for countries to replace coal and therefore reduce emissions. Global emissions have continued to rise since 2000, in the United States, they have not. Largely because natural gas has displaced coal since 2007. This is not an act of policy. This is just commercial reality.
[Innovation is making LNG smarter]
So when we're talking about decarbonization of the LNG industry, we're really talking about three pillars.
[reducing methane emissions]
The first one being reducing methane emissions.
[reducing plant emissions]
The second one is around the actual liquefaction plant
[100% electrically driven by solar power]
so how do we make them cleaner in the sense of electrification or carbon capture when it makes sense? And the third one is around the transportation
[more efficient shipping]
so the shipping aspect of it and how do we use more efficient and lower emission shipping to transport the LNG. Longer term, we can think about transforming natural gas into hydrogen-based fuels. We can also think about direct combustion with carbon capture so there are innovations that are on the horizon that will actually help natural gas continue to be a fuel of choice as we think about lower carbon futures. I think if you're talking about here till 2050, you can really see LNG as a destination fuel.
There's going to be huge growth in renewables but many markets need that LNG alongside.
It combines what we need today with what we are building for tomorrow.
[TotalEnergies logo]