ES #146: The World's Ten Fastest-Growing Gas Producers & Consumers

The ten largest and fastest-growing countries by liquids production, oil demand, and refinery capacity from 2023 to 2024.

July 13, 2025 • Est. Reading Time: 8 minutes

Energy Shots #146

The Energy Institute’s annual statistical report on world energy consumption for 2024 arrived last month, providing an opportunity to evaluate drivers of supply and demand growth across energies. Today’s Energy Shots follows our previous report on 2024’s top-10 global rankings for crude production and consumption with the same update for natural gas and LNG.

  • Highlight: Asia-led growth in global natural gas demand continued in 2024, though the region saw a new leader replace China with the title of World’s Fastest-Growing LNG Importer.

Natural Gas Production

2024’s top ten countries by total natural gas production remained unchanged from 2023. However, China’s development of South China Sea assets narrowed its gap to third-ranked Iran by more than half to 1.2 Bcf/d last year.

Meanwhile, the ten fastest-growing countries (measured by actual Y/Y growth) saw significant movement from last year’s rankings as U.S. output was little changed from 2023, dropping it from this year’s list after posting +4.1 Bcf/d growth from 2022.

Russia jumped into the top ten and up to the #1 slot for Y/Y production growth with +4.04 Bcf/d in 2024. China held onto its #2 position with another 1.3 Bcf/d added last year.

Natural Gas Consumption

The world’s ten largest natural gas consumers remained unchanged from 2023 and collectively accounted for over 64.2% of global demand, up a quarter of a percentage point from last year.

The ten fastest-growing countries by average daily natural gas consumption in 2024 contained several notable updates.

  • China remained the world’s fastest-growing natural gas consumer for another year, adding 2.7 Bcf/d (+6.9%) to total demand.

  • Russia jumped three places higher in 2024 with Y/Y growth of 2.1 Bcf/d (+4.8%), moving above the United States despite the U.S.’ improvement from +0.8 Bcf/d to +1.1 Bcf/d (+1.3%) last year.

  • Uzbekistan’s daily gas consumption had the largest percentage increase among 2024’s top ten, gaining 17.8% (+0.8 Bcf/d) Y/Y to 5.3 Bcf/d. India trailed closely behind with a 13% (+0.8 Bcf/d) Y/Y increase to 6.8 Bcf/d (ranked 11th for total). Indonesia moved to 2024’s seventh-fastest ranking with +9.5% (+0.4 Bcf/d) to 4.6 Bcf/d.

The entire Asia Pacific region beat S. & C. America for the fastest Y/Y growth rate last year, gaining 4.5% (+4 Bcf/d) to 93.8 Bcf/d—a new record and a narrower gap to total North American consumption (109.1 Bcf/d).

China accounted for nearly 45% of the entire Asia Pacific region’s natural gas consumption at 41.9 Bcf/d in 2024, beating its trailing 10YR average Y/Y growth rate by 0.4 Bcf/d for the second straight year.

India’s average daily natural gas demand increased by the largest margin in fifteen years and more than quadrupled from the trailing 10YR average Y/Y change, supporting arguments for India-led global energy demand growth over the next decade+.

LNG Imports

Asia Pacific countries captured the top half of 2024’s top-10 LNG importers as Taiwan surpassed France for the world’s #5 ranking at 2.81 Bcf/d. China doubled its lead over Japan to hang onto the top position in 2024, while India (#4) narrowed its gap to South Korea (#3) by 0.5 Bcf/d.

India’s LNG imports increased 25% (+0.73 Bcf/d) Y/Y to 3.66 Bcf/d in 2024, putting it in the #1 slot of last year’s fastest-growing LNG importers—highlighting India’s emerging role as the world’s demand growth engine despite significant strategic reticence to abandon coal-fired power generation.

China’s LNG import growth slowed to 7.6% (+0.72 Bcf/d) from over 12% Y/Y in 2023, dropping it to #2 on 2024’s rankings. South Korea and Taiwan moved into the top-10 and into positions #3 and #4 with +4.8% (+0.28 Bcf/d) and +6.2% (+0.17 Bcf/d) Y/Y growth.

LNG Exports

The United States held onto its #1 rank among global LNG exporters with average daily exports of 11.14 Bcf/d in 2024. Qatar and Australia nearly tied for second-place with 10.34 and 10.33 Bcf/d, respectively—a narrower gap from the 0.1 Bcf/d lead Qatar maintained in 2023.

Nigeria and Indonesia moved past Algeria for this year’s #6 and #7 rankings, marking the only difference from 2023’s top-10 largest LNG exporters.

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ES.

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