International Energy Week 2025: our key takeaways for oil & gas

As the publicity material for International Energy Week 2025 – held in London from 25-27 February – states, we live in an energy hungry world. Amid growing trade tensions and shifting energy policy, what does that mean for oil and gas? 

Wood Mackenzie’s crude, refined products and LNG experts presented a series of briefings at the event on the opportunities and challenges for global oil and gas markets in 2025. Fill out the form to download the slide decks from the event, or read on for a brief summary of the key themes for each segment. 

LNG: a new era of growth 

2025 is a transition year for the LNG market, initiating a strong phase of LNG supply growth. Plaquemines LNG is ramping up at a record pace, creating some upside for the delivery of the second phase. Next in line is Tortue FLNG, while commissioning activities are continuing at LNG Canada. Timely delivery and commissioning will be critical in a tight market. Global LNG supply growth will more than double in 2026 with further projects hitting the market in North America and Qatar. 

Asian LNG demand growth will be under pressure this year, growing only 2 Mt year-on-year. Expected sustained LNG prices will deter some spot demand and could raise some affordability concerns. Europe will compete for cargoes to support injections into gas storage ahead of winter, but with a structural lack of volumes in the market, European gas storage is only expected to reach 81% in October 2025. 

Crude oil: a market in surplus 

Overall oil demand continues to grow but is outpaced by non-OPEC supply growth across both 2025 and 2026. New non-OPEC supply is primarily from conventional projects, so supply growth is dependent upon when the projects complete and so independent of price. US tight oil, however, provides a flexible source of supply, but its annual supply growth is around 340 kb/d for 2025. Other sources of supply continue to flow, with our Russian waterborne and VesselTracker services showing that Russian oil exports continue to flow and sanctioned vessels still accessing Chinese ports. We expect Iranian production to be only mildly affected by President Trump’s restored ‘maximum pressure policy’. Finally, the European pipeline crude market is only a peace settlement away from another significant twist that could see the taps turned on again.  

2026 oil demand growth could stall in a world of extensive US tariffs and retaliatory measures. For crude markets, small tariffs such as the 10% import duty to be imposed on Canadian barrels by the Trump administration should have little impact. However, the uncertainty caused by threats and negotiations can have much bigger consequences. Regardless of what happens from here, both Canadian and Mexican producers’ are ready to shift barrels away from US refiners, with the steeper 25% duty on Mexico likely to divert most of the Mexican oil that usually reaches the US to other markets.  

Refined products: market fundamentals remain weak 

Despite the global energy transition moving at a slower pace, Europe is the only region where we expect oil demand to decline in 2025. China will continue to lead global demand growth for oil, but the focus will be on the petrochemical sector as transport fuels combined are in decline. However, there are a wide range of potential impacts on oil demand depending on the nature and scale of tariffs which could be imposed by the US on its trading partners. 

For refining, the significant amount of capacity additions in 2024 supports growth in crude runs in 2025. However, the global refining landscape is shifting. A faster energy transition in Western economies is seeing capacity rationalisation which will weigh on crude runs in Europe and North America.  

Refining margins are set to be challenged this year by the fact that there is ample supply and demand is fragile. However, margins are set to strengthen in late 2026 and beyond as oil demand growth continues while refining capacity additions slow. European refiners are particularly hard hit in 2025 by the narrowing of the West African gasoline deficit, but this is highly dependent on stable operations of the Dangote refinery. That said, uncertainty continues to prevail over the market and fears of supply disruption is likely to cause volatility which could provide temporary periods of support for margins.   

Don’t forget to fill out the form at the top of the page to download your complimentary copies of the slide decks from our presentations, which cover these themes in more detail and contain a wide range of charts and data.