In last year’s report, we referred to the need to seek a certain balance between the ambitious plans which were on the table in 2005 and the reality, determined by a demand whose driving forces were weakening and much increased terminal construction costs. The present feeling is that, although weather conditions in 2007 did not generally favour expansion in demand in the northern hemisphere, the market became more optimistic again in its medium-term plans, although, as we shall see, there are varying degrees of dynamism between different areas of the world. There was brisk movement of ships from the Mediterranean to the terminals of the east coast of the USA in 2007, a year in which that country’s gas market proved more dynamic than the preceding one, due to the fall in prices. Whilst LNG is only a marginal percentage of the gas supply in the United States (although it rose sharply by almost 40% in 2007), it is a powerful tool for influencing internal prices when they are higher than those in the international market. Like the USA, the Asian market also stayed firm, helped by the shutdown of 8 GW of nuclear power in Japan due to operating problems.

These data explain the growth trend in the short-term and spot markets, a sign of the maturity of the LNG market overall, which adds to the security of supply. It is true that short-term and spot transactions do not yet exceed 10% of the world LNG market, but they are rising towards that figure.