This Holiday Season, It’s Time to Rethink the New Gas & LNG Market — and the Myths Shaping It

by Jonathan Bass

The holidays are meant for reflection. For stepping back from noise, headlines, and consensus thinking — and asking uncomfortable but necessary questions.

For those of us in the Gas & LNG business, this moment demands exactly that.

Because the truth is becoming harder to ignore: much of the industry is being guided not by reality, but by forecasts, narratives, and “net-zero pathways” that are increasingly disconnected from how energy systems actually work.

Energy Security Is National Security

This is the foundational truth that policy debates often obscure.

A nation that cannot guarantee affordable, reliable energy cannot guarantee:

  • economic stability

  • industrial competitiveness

  • social cohesion

  • or geopolitical independence

The past decade has made this unmistakably clear. From Europe’s energy crisis to supply-chain shocks across Asia, the lesson is the same: energy vulnerability becomes national vulnerability.

When countries lose control of their energy systems, they lose leverage — economically, diplomatically, and strategically.

Energy security is not a talking point.
It is national security.

The LNG Market Is Changing — But Not the Way the Narratives Claim

There is no question the global Gas & LNG market is transforming. Demand is shifting rapidly. Supply chains are under strain. Energy security has returned as a defining national priority from Europe to Asia. Governments are layering new regulations onto systems already pushed to their limits.

But alongside this transformation, the industry has been flooded with confident projections:

  • Predictable energy transitions

  • Linear declines in fossil fuel demand

  • Orderly paths to net-zero by 2050

  • Forward curves and forecasts that imply stability where none exists

These projections are repeated so often they are treated as fact. Yet when measured against real-world outcomes, they fail — repeatedly.

The Net-Zero 2050 Question No One Wants to Ask

Here is the question the industry avoids:

Is net-zero by 2050 an achievable engineering and economic outcome — or a political aspiration built on selectively curated data?

Global energy demand continues to grow. Developing nations prioritize affordability and reliability over ideology. Power systems remain deeply dependent on dispatchable energy. Renewable intermittency continues to expose structural fragility. LNG demand is rising — not declining — across Asia, Europe, and emerging markets.

And yet, many forecasts assume:

  • Perfect policy coordination across nations

  • Massive infrastructure buildouts without permitting delays

  • Breakthrough technologies deployed at global scale on ideal timelines

  • Stable geopolitics and uninterrupted supply chains

These are not energy forecasts. They are best-case narratives.

The uncomfortable reality is this: there is no credible, fully financed, globally executable pathway to net-zero by 2050 that preserves energy security for the world’s citizens.

Undermining energy security in pursuit of unrealistic timelines does not reduce emissions — it transfers risk to households, industries, and nations.

Forward Curves, Forecasts, and the Illusion of Control

Nowhere is this disconnect clearer than in long-term forecasts and forward curves.

Over the past decade, these tools have failed to predict:

  • Weather-driven demand shocks

  • Geopolitical disruptions

  • Supply delays and cost overruns

  • Nonlinear demand destruction and rebounds

They reverse direction after the fact, not before it.

And yet, companies continue to base:

  • Capital allocation

  • Contracting strategy

  • Infrastructure investment

  • Corporate valuation

on data that has a documented track record of being wrong at critical moments.

The real risk is not uncertainty.
The real risk is false precision.

Who Is Funding the Data — and Why That Matters

A harder question the industry must confront is this:

Who is paying for the research we rely on — and what incentives shape the conclusions?

Much of the “authoritative” data guiding energy decisions comes from paid research models, advocacy-aligned institutions, or consensus frameworks that reward narrative alignment over accuracy.

This concern is not abstract. President Trump repeatedly warned that energy policy was being shaped by fake news, selective data, and ideologically driven modeling — often at the expense of American workers, consumers, and national security.

The Energy Dominance Council reflects a return to first principles:

  • Energy must be affordable

  • Energy must be reliable

  • Energy policy must be grounded in facts, not fiction

  • And citizens must be protected from misinformation disguised as expertise

LNG Is Not the Problem — It’s the Reality Check

LNG is not a transitional afterthought.
It is a cornerstone of modern energy security.

It enables:

  • Coal displacement

  • Grid stability alongside renewables

  • Energy access for developing nations

  • Lower emissions today — not hypothetical reductions decades from now

Nations that secure LNG supply secure economic resilience, industrial continuity, and strategic independence.

Demonizing LNG through flawed forecasts and unrealistic net-zero modeling does not accelerate decarbonization.
It weakens national security.

What Real Leadership Looks Like in This Market

The next generation of LNG leaders will not outsource judgment to consensus models.

They will:

  • Challenge the data — especially when it supports comfortable narratives

  • Treat forecasts as inputs, not truth

  • Design strategies for volatility, not perfection

  • Value flexibility and optionality over rigid assumptions

  • Ground decisions in engineering, economics, and operational reality

A Holiday Reset for the Energy Industry

This holiday season is an opportunity to step back and ask whether we are leading — or following.

Whether we are building strategies around facts — or around forecasts designed to tell us what we want to hear.

The LNG market does not need more polished projections.
It needs honest analysis, intellectual courage, and leadership grounded in reality.

Because in the end, energy security is national security — and the world’s citizens deserve policies and infrastructure built on truth, not ideology.

It’s time to rethink our approach to the new Gas & LNG market.

 

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