Taiwan will increase its purchases of US gas in this year

Taiwan will increase its purchases of U.S. Natural Gas?to account for about one-third its import supply?this, and reduce its purchases from other countries.

Taiwan, which has a large surplus of trade with the U.S. has expressed interest in an enormous new LNG project in Alaska, that the Trump Administration has been pushing to its Asian allies as a possible supply option.

Kung Ming Hsin, Taiwan's Economy Minister, whose ministry is responsible for energy policy, said to reporters in Taipei, that Taiwan prefers more?gas coming from the United States than any other country.

Fang Jeng Zen, Chairman of Taiwan's State-owned refiner, CPC Corp, stated at the same press briefing that the plan is to?get around one-third?of?imports this year from the U.S.

Fang stated that the company plans to increase its natural gas purchases from the U.S. from 10% to 30%-33% by this year.

In March last year,

CPC signs an agreement

Alaska Gasline Development Corp. to purchase liquefied?gas from the company and invest in this project. Taiwanese President Lai Ching -te stated that such a move would help ensure energy?security on the island.

In the past decade, about 10% of Taiwan’s LNG imports have come from the United States.

Data from analytics firm Kpler revealed that Qatar and Australia would be its largest suppliers in 2025. Each of them will account for one third?of imports totaling 23.81 millions metric tons.

Australia's market share has fallen to 33.4% from its highest level since 2021. Qatar's share in Taiwan's LNG markets is steadily increasing, rising from 25.5% in the year 2021. (Reporting and editing by Himani Sarkar, Christian Schmollinger and Ben Blanchard. Additional reporting in Singapore by Sudarshan Varadhan.

(source: Reuters)