The new six-month delay to the Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC planned start-up in Texas will remove a fair amount of new supply from the market in a period of intense growth, shifting the surge from 2026 to 2027 and impacting both the global and North American gas markets, says Woodmac.
“We have revised our forecast start-up for Golden Pass LNG by six months to December 2025,” said Mark Bononi, Principal North America Gas and LNG Asset Research at Wood Mackenzie. “Specifically, we have pushed back first exports from Train 1 from June 2025 to December 2025. Similarly, we postponed first exports from Train 2 from December 2025 to June 2026, and Train 3 from June 2026 to December 2026 – keeping a six-month window between the start-up of the trains.”
According to Woods, this delay will remove 2.3 mmtpa and 5.2 mmtpa of growth from its forecast of supply in 2025 and 2026, respectively, equivalent to about 320 mmcfd and 725 mmcfd of feedgas in 2025 and 2026.
“A full year’s delay (from our previous view), which remains a risk, would result in a decrease of 10 mmtpa in our global LNG supply forecast for 2026 and a reduction of 5 mmtpa for 2027,” added Bononi. “Because of its size, Golden Pass LNG’s deferment could briefly impact global LNG prices and US natural gas production and prices. Depending on the project’s construction, there remains risks of further delays at Golden Pass LNG, and it could signal challenges to other US LNG projects.”