Qatari Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi on Monday warned that rising power demand from artificial intelligence could wipe out the global LNG surplus and push markets into deficit by around 2030, despite more than 100 million tonnes per year of new LNG capacity scheduled to come online this decade, Reuters reported.
Al-Kaabi said AI-driven data centers are emerging as a material source of gas demand as governments and technology companies accelerate investment in large-scale computing infrastructure. Unlike traditional industrial loads, data centers require continuous power, increasing reliance on gas-fired generation in regions where renewables cannot yet provide consistent baseload supply.
His comments come as Qatar advances a major expansion of its North Field LNG project, which will raise national capacity from about 77 million tonnes per year to roughly 126 million tonnes by the early 2030s. The expansion was designed to meet steady demand growth from Asia and Europe, rather than a sharp rise in electricity consumption linked to AI.
LNG markets have spent the past two years focused on oversupply risks, with new export projects in the United States, Qatar, and Africa expected to add more than 100 million tonnes per year of capacity by the end of the decade. That outlook has weighed on prices and made buyers cautious about locking in long-term contracts.
Industry forecasts have still pointed to underlying growth. Shell has said global LNG demand is likely to rise by around 3% per year, driven by coal-to-gas switching in Asia and Europe’s efforts to replace Russian pipeline supplies. Al-Kaabi’s warning suggests AI-related power demand could add a new layer of consumption that was not fully reflected in earlier projections.
Gas-fired generation remains one of the fastest options for meeting large, reliable power needs, particularly in countries competing to host data centers and AI infrastructure. If that build-out accelerates, LNG demand could rise in markets that had been expected to plateau later this decade.
Al-Kaabi said the risk is not immediate but lies in the second half of the decade. If AI demand expands alongside delays to new LNG projects or geopolitical disruptions, spare capacity could narrow quickly, tightening the market sooner than anticipated.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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