Global LNG trade reached approximately 420 million tonnes in 2024–25 and continues to expand. For AetherGas, however, the seaborne market is context rather than target: the Company’s LNG is a domestic, trucked, small-scale product competing not with Henry Hub or JKM cargoes but with South African diesel at the industrial burner tip and in the fuel tank.

The virtual pipeline model

Small-scale LNG monetises stranded or sub-scale gas by liquefying at the wellhead (reducing volume 600:1), trucking in vacuum-insulated cryogenic trailers up to ~800 km economically, and regasifying at customer sites or dispensing directly as vehicle fuel. Its competitiveness derives from the diesel spread: at R24/litre diesel (≈R478/GJ delivered including generator inefficiency) versus modelled delivered LNG of ≈R262/GJ, industrial users save roughly 45% per unit of useful energy, with payback on conversion capex typically inside 18–30 months.

Demand segments

Supply-side landscape

Domestic competing supply is thin: Renergen (Virginia, Free State) is the only operating onshore LNG producer; Sasol’s Secunda gas is committed and declining; and imported LNG via Richards Bay or Matola remains pre-FID or small-scale and lands at a structurally higher delivered cost inland once 600+ km of trucking is added. AetherGas’ wellhead position inland, close to Gauteng, the Free State goldfields and Northern Cape mining demand, is therefore a durable logistics moat rather than a temporary gap.