History of the world’s production of nat

History of the world's production of natural gas

This graph illustrates the production of natural gas in thousands of billions of cubic meters (both conventional and unconventional).

GRTgaz / Sia Partners

Ancre 1

Source: BP Statistical Review (2021)

Analysis

World production of natural gas has been increasing almost constantly for 40 years. It quadrupled between 1970 and 2021.

In 2021, the largest world producers are first of all the United States and Russia, with respectively 22.7% and 15.8% of world production. Next are Iran (6.2%), China (4.8%) and Qatar (4.2%). 2/3 of world production are ensured by 8 countries.

As during the 2008 crisis, there is a slight drop (-3%) in production in 2020 following the Covid-19 crisis. However, production strongly resumed its growth of 2019 (5%) during the year 2021. The African continent is the one which restarted best with an increase of 11.3%. The other regions do not exceed 10% increase, South and Central America is struggling to reach the 1% mark.