countries · sectors · sub-national hubs · trade bodies · FTAs · tools · academy · essays
Energy is its own axis — it prices into every other goods sector, and the connectivity geometry creates long-duration dependencies that cannot be re-routed at short notice.
Energy connectivity differs from the other axes of this atlas in two structural ways. First, energy infrastructure is heavily fixed-asset: a major cross-border pipeline costs in the order of one to ten billion dollars to build, takes five to fifteen years from concept to commissioning, and operates over a thirty-to-fifty-year design life. The capital intensity makes energy connectivity a long-duration commercial commitment that is fundamentally different from a containerised goods routing decision that can be made flow-by-flow. Second, energy pricing flows directly into the cost of every other goods sector — a fertiliser plant in Europe is a function of the European gas price; a steel mill in India is a function of the coking-coal and electricity price; a long-haul trucking lane in any country is a function of the diesel price. Energy connectivity is therefore not a separate concern from the rest of the trade economy; it is an upstream input to it.
The energy-rail page below treats the major cross-border pipeline systems and the LNG terminal network as the two halves of the global energy connectivity graph. Pipelines move bulk hydrocarbons and gas at low marginal cost between contiguous regions; LNG terminals move gas across oceans by liquefying it for shipping and regasifying it on arrival. The two systems are partial substitutes — LNG can fill in for a disrupted pipeline, but only with substantial liquefaction and regasification capacity at both ends and at higher per-unit cost. The 2022 onward European energy reconfiguration is the canonical case study of this substitution at industrial scale.
The Nord Stream system was the principal direct gas route from Russia to Germany, bypassing Ukrainian and Polish transit. Nord Stream 1, in commercial operation from 2011 to August 2022, carried up to 55 billion cubic metres per year. Nord Stream 2 was completed in 2021 with the same nominal capacity but was never commercially commissioned because of the regulatory freeze imposed by Germany following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both pipelines were rendered inoperable by the September 2022 underwater sabotage, the investigation of which has produced public claims from multiple state-actor sources but no widely-accepted attribution.
The commercial implications were the structural shock that reshaped European energy geography. Russia, which had been Europe's largest single gas supplier (around forty per cent of EU gas consumption pre-2022), was effectively excluded from the principal European pipeline route. Europe's response was a combination of accelerated LNG-import capacity build-out, demand reduction, and substitution from alternative pipeline sources — the single largest peacetime reconfiguration of an energy supply system in modern European history.
The Druzhba pipeline is the principal Russian crude-oil export route to Europe, in commercial operation since 1964. The pipeline runs from the Volga-Urals oil region through Belarus, with a northern branch into Poland and Germany and a southern branch into Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The system has been progressively de-emphasised since 2022: the EU's sixth sanctions package in 2022 imposed an oil embargo on Russian crude with a temporary derogation for landlocked Central European states served by Druzhba southern branch. As of 2026 the pipeline continues to operate at reduced volumes serving Hungary and Slovakia in particular, with the structural expectation of continued decline as those countries develop alternative supply.
The BTC pipeline is the principal westward export route for Azerbaijani crude, running roughly 1,770 kilometres from the Sangachal terminal near Baku, through Georgia, to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan in Turkey. The pipeline has structural significance as the first major hydrocarbon export route from the Caspian Basin that bypasses Russian territory, providing energy-export geography that is independent of Russian transit. The pipeline operates at approximately 1.2 million barrels per day capacity and serves European and Mediterranean refineries plus seaborne cargoes onward.
BTC's geopolitical role increased substantially after 2022 as Europe sought to diversify away from Russian crude. Azerbaijani volumes are not large enough to displace Russian volumes, but the pipeline has become a structural element of the broader Caspian-to-Europe energy corridor that includes the parallel South Caucasus gas pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP).
The Southern Gas Corridor connects the Azeri Shah Deniz gas field to Italy via three connected pipeline segments: the South Caucasus Pipeline (Azerbaijan-Georgia), TANAP (Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline through Turkey), and TAP (Trans-Adriatic Pipeline from Greece to Italy). The system has been progressively commissioned since 2018, with TAP entering commercial operation in 2020. Total system capacity is approximately ten billion cubic metres per year delivered to Italy with potential expansion.
The corridor's strategic relevance is that it is the only major gas-supply route to Europe that is independent of both Russian and Norwegian sources. Post-2022 European policy explicitly identifies expansion of the Southern Gas Corridor as a priority, with discussions of doubling capacity through TANAP expansion and additional Caspian-region supply contracts.
The Power of Siberia gas pipeline system carries Russian gas eastward to China. POS-1, in commercial operation since December 2019, runs from the Chayanda field in Yakutia to Heihe on the Chinese border with onward Chinese-domestic distribution. POS-2, in extended negotiation, would route from the West Siberian gas fields (the same fields that historically supplied Europe via Nord Stream and other westward systems) through Mongolia to northern China, providing a structural alternative for gas that previously had Europe as its primary export market.
The commercial implications of POS-2 are significant — if commissioned, the pipeline would lock in a long-duration eastward redirection of Russian gas exports that previously went west, with corresponding implications for European gas supply diversification, Chinese gas pricing, and the broader geopolitical alignment of Russia-China energy infrastructure. As of 2026, the system remains in negotiation rather than under construction.
The Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline is a long-running framework for connecting the natural-gas networks of the ASEAN states into a regional grid. Implementation has progressed in segments rather than as a single unified project: the West-Natuna-to-Singapore, Yetagun-to-Ratchaburi (Myanmar-Thailand), Malaysia-to-Singapore, Malaysia-to-Vietnam, and several other bilateral and trilateral pipelines have been built under the framework, with regional coordination through ASCOPE (the ASEAN Council on Petroleum). A fully integrated single grid remains aspirational, but the framework has produced a meaningful intra-ASEAN gas infrastructure that supports gas-on-gas competition within the region.
Liquefied natural gas changes the geometry of gas trade by allowing gas to move across oceans rather than just along pipelines. The cost penalty is real — liquefaction at the export end, regasification at the import end, plus the LNG carrier fleet — but the routing flexibility is substantial. A liquefaction-equipped exporter can sell to any importer with a regasification terminal; an importer with regasification capacity can buy from any liquefaction-equipped exporter. The LNG market therefore behaves more like an oil market (cargoes bid against each other globally) than like a traditional pipeline gas market (locked-in long-term contracts to specific buyers). The 2022 onward European energy reconfiguration relied heavily on this routing flexibility.
Ras Laffan (Qatar) is the world's largest LNG export complex, operated by QatarEnergy LNG (the merged successor of Qatargas and RasGas), with current liquefaction capacity of approximately 77 million tonnes per annum and the North Field Expansion bringing capacity to 142 mtpa by 2030. Qatari LNG transits the Bab-el-Mandeb to reach Europe and the Strait of Hormuz to reach Asian buyers — making this the canonical case where the cross-axis interaction with maritime chokepoints is most acute.
Sabine Pass + Cove Point + Corpus Christi (United States) are the principal US LNG export terminals, together with the recently commissioned Plaquemines, Calcasieu Pass, and the under-construction Rio Grande LNG and Port Arthur LNG. The US became the world's largest LNG exporter in 2023 and serves both European and Asian buyers; US LNG exports were the single largest swing supply that filled in for displaced Russian pipeline gas to Europe in 2022-2024.
Pluto + Gorgon + North West Shelf + Wheatstone + Ichthys + Prelude (Australia) are the principal Australian LNG export terminals, with combined capacity making Australia historically the world's largest LNG exporter (the country was overtaken by the US in 2023). Australian LNG serves predominantly Asian buyers — Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China — under long-term contracts.
Yamal LNG + Sakhalin-2 + Arctic LNG-2 (Russia) are the Russian LNG export terminals. Yamal LNG (operated by Novatek) and Sakhalin-2 (operated by Sakhalin Energy, with Gazprom holding controlling stake after Western majors exited) continue to operate; Arctic LNG-2 has faced sanctions-related operational difficulties since 2023 that have constrained its commissioning.
Bintulu (Malaysia) and the various Indonesian LNG terminals (Bontang, Tangguh, Donggi-Senoro) anchor the South-East Asian LNG export profile, predominantly serving North Asian buyers under long-term contracts.
NLNG Bonny Island (Nigeria), Damietta and Idku (Egypt), and the various smaller African LNG terminals serve a mix of European and Asian buyers, with Egypt's Mediterranean position making it a particularly relevant supplier to Europe post-2022.
The post-2022 European regasification build-out is the largest peacetime energy-infrastructure project of the last three decades. Germany, which entering 2022 had no LNG import terminal at all, commissioned five Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) in less than two years — at Wilhelmshaven, Brunsbüttel, Mukran, Lubmin, and a fifth Wilhelmshaven unit. The Netherlands added the Eemshaven FSRU at the same time. Italy expanded the Piombino and Ravenna FSRUs. France brought additional capacity at Le Havre and elsewhere. Spain, the UK, and Belgium expanded existing onshore regasification capacity. Combined, the European LNG-import capacity expansion of 2022-2025 added approximately 100 billion cubic metres per year of regasification capacity, sufficient to substitute for the displaced Russian pipeline volumes.
The build-out illustrates two important features of energy infrastructure economics. First, FSRU technology — essentially a regasification-equipped vessel moored at a port — allows much faster commissioning than onshore terminals (months to a year, versus three to five years for onshore). Second, energy infrastructure can be built rapidly when the political and commercial commitment is unambiguous; the constraint in normal times is permitting and financing certainty, not engineering. The European response in 2022-2025 demonstrates the upper bound of how fast the energy connectivity geometry can be reshaped under stress.
Asian LNG demand has been the structural anchor of the global LNG market for the last three decades. Japan was the original anchor importer, having moved to LNG as a primary energy source in the 1970s following the oil shocks; Korea and Taiwan followed similar patterns. China and India are the two large growth markets — China overtook Japan as the largest single LNG importer in 2021, with continued growth driven by gas substitution for coal in industrial and residential use; India has commissioned multiple new regas terminals (Dahej, Hazira, Kochi, Dhamra, Mundra, with several more in construction) in line with its target of doubling natural gas's share of the energy mix.
For Indian trade-intelligence purposes, the LNG import network is structurally relevant because India is now a substantial spot-market LNG buyer, with import volumes responsive to spot prices. The interaction with the maritime chokepoints axis is direct: Indian LNG cargoes from Qatar transit Hormuz; cargoes from the US transit either Suez/Bab-el-Mandeb (Atlantic basin) or Cape (during Red Sea disruption) or Panama (Pacific routing).
The trader, the corporate energy procurement function, and the trade-finance bank face a different decision structure on energy than on the other rails of this atlas. Three structural features dominate.
First, energy contracts are typically long-duration. A natural-gas long-term contract is twenty years or more; a pipeline access agreement is similar; an LNG purchase contract is typically ten to twenty years. The energy procurement decision therefore commits to a particular connectivity geometry for a long horizon, which means the question what is the supply geometry likely to be in 2035? is operationally as important as what is it today?.
Second, energy is geopolitically sensitive in a way that other goods are not. A sanctions decision against Russia in 2022 propagated through the European energy system at industrial scale; a sanctions decision against Iran has shaped Asian crude flows for decades; a sanctions decision against Venezuela has reshaped Caribbean refinery flows. The political-risk component of any cross-border energy commitment is therefore a primary input rather than a residual.
Third, energy pricing is geographically unified through the LNG and crude-tanker routes but divergent through the pipeline-bound segments. Henry Hub gas (US), TTF gas (Europe), JKM LNG (North Asia), and Indian RLNG prices are linked through the LNG arbitrage but typically diverge by a fuel-cost-and-shipping margin. A trader exposed to gas prices needs to know which benchmark applies to which procurement, and the connectivity geometry above is the structural determinant of that.
Explore
Every page in the AJG platform cross-links to these primary entities. Click any pill to explore that branch of the knowledge graph.