MTS Insights

The United Nations “World Population Prospects 2019” is the 26th edition of the publication combing over 1,600 population censuses and result from 2,700 representative sample surveys. The current edition of this report confirms several things about global demographics. The world population is growing but at a slower rate than usual mostly caused by decreasing fertility rates and an aging population. Since fertility rates are expected to be a major factor, countries with higher than average fertility are expected to make the largest additions to the population. The UN expects over half of population growth will be caused by 9 countries: the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America. On the other hand, the UN sees the populations of 55 countries decreasing by 1 percent or more by 2050. The following countries are expected to see decreases of 20 percent or higher: Bulgari...

In June 2019, the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (Oxford Energy) released its " Quarterly Gas Review " reporting on recent trends in the market. Here are some of the highlights of its report: Low LNG Spot Prices Force Rethink of Oil Indexing Since the end of 2018, the LNG market has seen an increase in capacity inflating the global supply leading to weakening in the Asian spot price (Anea) and the European spot price (TTF). In addition to the spot prices, Oxford Energy has seen its measure of "LNG tightness," the spread between US Gulf Coast LNG FOB (AGC) price and the Henry Hub (HH) price, drop. Oxford Energy also saw Asian spot prices fall below Europe prices, "something never before seen" in their data from June 2016 to today. Coupled with high Brent crude oil prices, the trends are forcing buyers to reconsider their contracts chained to the price of oil. Oxford Energy thinks that this could "strengthen the [LNG Japan/Korea Marker (Pla...