IGU’s Reaction to IEA’s 2025 World Energy Outlook

The International Gas Union (IGU) welcomes the International Energy Agency's (IEA) 2025 World Energy Outlook (WEO2025) and its confirmation that natural gas - which already supplies more than a quarter of the world's primary energy needs - will grow strongly and continue to play a critical role in delivering energy to power progress, reduce emissions and drive affordable, sustainable development across the globe.

The need for secure energy supplies is particularly acute in a world where, as WEO2025 rightly observes, unprecedented energy security threats and growing longer-term risks have thrust energy security front and centre for many governments.

Amidst these geopolitical, economic and regulatory uncertainties, it is welcome that the WEO2025 highlights the key role that Gas and its infrastructure will continue to play as a key source of energy supply flexibility and resilience, particularly in the case of accelerated electricity demand and bringing new LNG supplies to the global market.

Alongside the picture of strongly rising overall energy demand, power systems are expanding even faster and becoming more complex to manage as electrification spreads into different parts of the global economy. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are central to this expansion, but their inherent variability poses serious challenges to system stability. Natural gas and LNG will therefore play an increasingly critical role as a flexible, dispatchable partner to renewables, enabling their integration at scale while still maintaining the system reliability necessary to underpin the IEA's "Age of Electricity".

Another key contribution to the energy security pillars highlighted in the WEO2025 is the remarkable investment from the global Gas industry into new LNG capacity. We have already seen the huge contribution that flexible LNG supply made in managing the extraordinary energy market shocks since 2022.

The IGU is proud that many of its members are investing strongly in the new LNG infrastructure necessary to ensure energy security and access across various global regions and is confident that the LNG sector will continue to develop and evolve to meet customers' needs and respond to the multiple shifts in global energy dynamics.

Menelaos (Mel) Ydreos, the Secretary General of the IGU, said:

"As the global energy demand continues to rise, potentially outpacing projections, there is an urgent need to prepare for future energy supply challenges. Gas will play a critical role in doing this, offering reliability and adaptability in today's uncertain and fast-evolving energy landscape. Like the IEA, IGU knows that energy security is not possible without continued investment in the availability, affordability and flexibility that is provided by Gas and its innovative technologies and infrastructure."

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For more information on IGU's position to IEA's 2025 World Energy Outlook, please contact Mr Mark McCrory, IGU Strategy and Advocacy Director, at [email protected]