Thomas Morris, vice president of exploration and production for Asia at Total Energy, said at an industry event that China and Europe will lead the growth in LNG demand this year. "Global LNG demand has continued to grow this year as China returns to the market, but has not yet reached 2021 levels," Morris said. Demand in Europe will continue to grow. At the same time, new capacity will not come online in the near term, so it will continue to put some pressure on prices and volatility."

Market participants said that the forecast of demand growth in the European market may be less certain than in the Chinese market, as the European Commission recently stated that its goal is to keep a close eye on gas consumption and keep it as low as possible. As the EU wants to continue to stabilize its energy and gas supplies, the European Commission is proposing that EU member States continue to take voluntary measures to reduce gas demand overall by 15 percent.

Still, Total Energy is not the first energy giant to be bullish on natural gas. Another supermajor, Shell, said in February that it expected global LNG demand to increase by a whopping 50 percent by 2040. Shell said LNG demand growth would be led by China and Asia as a whole, as emerging Asian economies switched from coal to gas. Editor/Xu Shengpeng