Global Gas and LNG Outlook: Balancing Growth, Security and Sustainability

Earlier this week Mr Andrea Stegher – the President of the International Gas Union (IGU) – delivered the keynote address at IndoGAS 2025, the 11th International Indonesia Gas Conference.

Organised by the Indonesian Gas Society – a Charter Member of the IGU – the Conference brought together industry leaders, policymakers, and experts to address the strategic, regulatory, technical, and commercial challenges for Indonesia’s Gas and LNG sector amid an impending energy supply-demand gap.

Opening the Conference, Mr Stegher remarked that “the energy trilemma of our generation is, once again, coming full circle: emerging economies need to grow and expand yet, to do so, they need to have a secure supply of energy which, first of all, needs to be sustainable. And this “sustainability” supersedes the environmental components alone: the energy supply itself needs to be sustainable; in other words, it needs to be affordable, available and clean.

Gas, in all its forms, is that energy resource that can allow economies, both Indonesia’s and others across the South-Asia region, to flourish and become truly sustainable through a continuous industrial and socio-economic output that can be underpinned – or stabilised – by Gas.”

IGU’s President also highlighted in his keynote the fact that global LNG markets remain tight and face geopolitical shifts, supply chain disruptions, and financing challenges, as abundantly detailed in IGU’s 2025 World LNG Report, and further stressed by the recent conflict in the Middle East region and the relevance of the Strait of Hormuz route for close to 80% of Asian LNG demand.

As the Indonesian Government is progressing on defining ambitious climate targets, there is a significant amount of pressure on the country’s pathway to phase out its coal use in power generation and to reduce oil in transport. On this particular aspect, Stegher emphasised that “natural gas, LNG and the potential biomethane development considering Indonesia’s vast resources, are the clear and most suitable choices for Indonesia’s target to net zero as Gas, in all its forms, can provide your incredible country with what it needs the most, at a critical time in its energy transition journey: energy security, energy availability, energy affordability and energy sustainability.”

In rousing call to action at the end of his keynote address, Stegher concluded:

“As Indonesia’s natural gas and LNG demand surges, your country is not at a crossroads, but at a starting point underpinned by Gas: it can dramatically reduce CO2 emissions, it can provide a platform for large scale infrastructure investments, and it can definitely accelerate the country’s decarbonisation efforts. Most importantly, it can help the Indonesian economy grow and its society to flourish”.