India is trying Russian LNG: will the country become a new market instead of Europe

Alexey Belogoryev, Research and Development Director of the Institute for Energy and Finance, commented to Forbes on the prospects for Russian LNG supplies to India and Southeast Asian countries.

India is one of the most promising LNG markets, Belogoryev says. He recalls that Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman have traditionally been the key suppliers of liquefied natural gas to India, accounting for 67% of LNG consumption. India, like other Asian countries, will have to significantly reconsider its attitude to the reliability of supplies from the Persian Gulf, which potentially opens up this market to Russia, the expert believes.

"But to expect that it will be equal in importance to the Chinese one is still too optimistic a scenario," he notes. — Indian importers are sensitive to the risks of secondary sanctions. Their keeping or expansion in relation to Russian LNG plants and gas carriers will be a determining factor in demand in India."

Southeast and South Asia are an undeveloped LNG market for Russia, which in any case will have to be aggressively entered under an embargo from Europe, Belogoryev says. Thailand is the largest importer of LNG in Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the still very young markets of Vietnam, the Philippines and Myanmar are promising. The main problem is logistics, although Trinidad and Tobago, the United States and Canada, for which these markets are also not close, are quite successfully gaining a foothold in them, he concludes.