France: Europe’s largest LNG importer [Global Gas Perspectives]

Summary

France has emerged as the fifth largest LNG market in the world, even if the country’s gas consumption has peaked. LNG demand is likely to decline, but may prove sticky as French imports provide flexibility both nationally and for Europe’s wider energy security.

In the last few years, France has emerged not only as Europe’s largest importer of LNG, but the fifth largest single country market in the world. Energy Institute data shows France importing 30.7bn m3 of LNG in 2023, making up 90% of its total gas consumption, compared with less than half in 2020. 
However, France has never been a gas consumer on the scale of Europe’s other large economies. Its extensive fleet of nuclear power plants has kept gas demand low as a proportion of overall energy consumption. The primary destinations for gas in France are residential and commercial buildings and industry rather than power plants. Public gas distribution accounted for 53.6% of demand in the period August 1 to November 10 this year, industry 41.6% and gas-fired generation just 4.9%. 
As elsewhere in Europe, France&rsqu…