Liquefied natural gas (LNG) production outages broke records last year and combined with upstream underperformance to limit supplies and tighten the global market in a way that could worsen over the coming years, the International Energy Agency said Monday. 

The total LNG volume lost to planned or unplanned outages was 53 billion cubic meters (Bcm) in 2021, which is the equivalent of nearly 9% of the world’s nameplate capacity and represents a 44% increase on the 2015-2020 average, IEA said in its latest quarterly natural gas market report. About half of the LNG volumes lost to unplanned outages in 2021 were due to upstream issues that limited feed gas availability, with the most severe incidents occurring in Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, and Malaysia.

Pandemic-related...