As a result of lower demand, 23.6 Bcm (-1.9% y-o-y) less natural gas was traded worldwide in 2020, maintaining global natural gas imports around the 1.2 Tcm mark. This small contraction was exclusively the result of pipeline natural gas imports (-26.3 Bcm, -3.5% y-o-y), while LNG natural gas imports were more resilient to the global crisis and expanded by 1.4 Bcm (+0.3 y-o-y).

OECD countries saw the most substantial reduction in global natural gas trade (-27.8 Bcm, -3.3% y-o-y), both in pipeline imports (-18.1 Bcm, -3.3% y-o-y) and LNG imports (-10.8 Bcm, -3.7% y-o-y). The decline was most pronounced in Europe, where German pipeline natural gas imports fell by 11.5 Bcm. Conversely, natural gas imports in non-OECD countries grew by 1.1% year-on-year with a 4.1 Bcm expansion. This was due to LNG imports, which added 12.2 Bcm to the volumes traded in 2020, while pipeline natural gas imports decreased by 8.1 Bcm (-4.2% y-o-y) the same year.