Middle East
Mar 02, 2026
As of last weekend, U.S. and Israeli forces struck Iranian-linked targets, escalating tensions across the Gulf as Iran retaliated against multiple sites, heightening concerns over the duration and severity of the conflict. While diplomatic signals remain mixed, several military and political developments have followed. Yet one critical question persists: what would an extended Strait of Hormuz disruption mean for LPG and regional exporters? In this week’s report, NGLStrategy assesses the potential implications for the LPG market [...]
Read MoreDemand
Feb 23, 2026
Vietnam currently consumes over 4 mm t of LPG per year with this figure anticipated to reach over 5 mm t by the end of the decade. The majority of the supply is met through imports. Looking ahead, changes to the country’s LPG landscape are expected with moves to incorporate more ethane as a feedstock and implementation of new infrastructure particularly in the north of the country. [...]
Read MoreEthane
Feb 16, 2026
In recent years, newbuilding activity in the gas shipping sector has accelerated sharply, with substantial additions to the orderbooks across all major segments, including VLGCs, VLACs, and VLECs. As the VLGC and VLAC markets are widely expected to face oversupply in the coming years—particularly amid the slowdown and postponement of ammonia-related demand—attention is increasingly turning to the outlook for the VLEC segment [...]
Read MoreButane
Feb 09, 2026
Seaborne butane markets have shifted rapidly in recent years, with US exports increasing strongly on a year-on-year basis, while Middle East exports have remained volatile and closely linked to OPEC+ quotas and slower upstream production growth in recent periods. Other regions have been broadly stable, with a general tendency toward softening. Overall, the increasing need for both the U.S. and the Middle East to clear surplus butane volumes is likely to require downward price adjustments to stimulate additional demand, intensifying competition between the two exporters in Eastern markets and ultimately driving greater price convergence between Mont Belvieu and Middle Eastern benchmarks. [...]
Read MoreMiddle East
Feb 02, 2026
NGLStrategy forecasts LPG exports to rise by around 5 mm t from the Middle East in 2026 compared to 2025. Saudi Arabia is a key contributor to this, as is Qatar with the start-up of the North Gas Field new phases in the 2nd half of the year [...]
Read MoreUS
Jan 26, 2026
For yet another January, early weather forecasts failed to capture the emergence of a material cold spell, which ultimately developed this week across a large portion of the United States. Unsurprisingly, this cold spell carries direct implications for U.S. energy markets and, more specifically, the domestic LPG balance, with conditional spillovers into export performance alongside other supply-demand dynamics [...]
Read MoreAutogas
Jan 19, 2026
This week we explore a couple of growth scenarios for two of the largest autogas consumers globally: Turkey and S. Korea, highlighting the importance for the LPG industry [...]
Read MoreBalance
Jan 12, 2026
2026 is expected to see significant growth in LPG gas plant production.
With demand within these regions not expected to grow by vast amounts, the majority of the volume will head to the export market.
On the demand side, LPG consumption will see the largest growth in the retail sector [...]
Read MoreProduction
Jan 05, 2026
Recent geopolitical developments in Venezuela have raised significant questions and uncertainty around oil and gas markets, with most attention understandably focused on crude oil production, reserves, and the potential implications for global oil balances. In this article, we aim to unpack the potential impacts on LPG markets, which, while not of the same scale or global influence as crude oil, could still prove meaningful for global LPG dynamics, particularly over the medium term [...]
Read MorePetrochemicals
Dec 15, 2025
In Week 30 we highlighted the growth of US ethylene production in first half 2025. That growth has continued into Q3, according to the latest AFPM figures. Effective capacity utilisation has increased to 89%. As it turned out first-half year official ethylene production was slightly down on our forecast and effective capacity utilisation was only at 84%, so Q3 production represents a major step forward.
Part of the increased production in Q3 went into inventory, but both net ethylene derivative export trade and domestic ethylene derivative consumption were up on Q2 levels [...]
Read MoreTariffs
Dec 08, 2025
2025 was marked by significant volatility, driven largely by the impact of US–China tariffs, which remained the market’s key sensitivity throughout the year. NGLStrategy’s early projections for 2025 did not anticipate the magnitude of these tariffs in the base-case scenario. As a result, the actual tariff levels materially reduced Chinese imports and placed sustained downward pressure on LPG prices in the East. In this week’s update, we revisit several of our 2025 estimates for key indices, originally presented at our 2024 London seminar held in late November 2024 [...]
Read MoreRetail
Dec 01, 2025
With the US-China trade tariffs impacting the LPG seaborne trade market for the majority of 2025, one country which has been seen to increase its supply of LPG from the US as a result is Indonesia [...]
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