This article was published by The Energy Mix on Jan. 19, 2026.
Colossal fossil Shell and industrial conglomerate Mitsubishi are trying to sell off their shares in the $40-billion LNG Canada liquefied natural gas megaproject, reinforcing predictions that 2026 would be the year that an oversupplied global market for the climate-polluting gas begins to hit home.
“The moves come as owners of the massive liquefied natural gas facility weigh a potential expansion, and after another stakeholder, Petronas, successfully offloaded a piece of the project,” Reuters revealed Friday, in an exclusive report citing three sources familiar with discussions.
The news agency says Shell has been working with investment bankers at Rothschild & Co. to offload up to three-quarters of its 40% share in the project, for an asking price of about US$15 billion. “Shell has expressed willingness, however, to consider different options relating to its exposure to the project’s Phase 1, which is operational, and the proposed Phase 2, given their different risks,” Reuters writes.
Mitsubishi hasn’t begun courting buyers, but has hired RBC Capital Markets while it assesses its options.
LNG Canada, the first North American facility of its kind with direct access to the Pacific Ocean, “has a supply cost advantage because prices for Canadian natural gas consistently trade at a discount” compared to the U.S. price benchmark, named for the Henry Hub pipeline distribution centre in Louisiana, Reuters explains. “Even so, existing and potential owners will consider industry fears of global oversupply of the supercooled fuel, as new LNG output comes online.”
The news comes just a month after Energy Transfer LP “indefinitely paused” its Lake Charles LNG project in Louisiana after extending its target date to start exports from 2025 to 2031, preferring instead to focus on domestic natural gas pipelines. And that wasn’t the only retrenchment, as fossil companies absorb the prospect that the LNG glut will become a “sinkhole”.
“Solar, wind power, and batteries are set to make life a misery for the liquefied natural gas market,” warned Thomson Reuters editor and news analyst Antony Currie, in one of the news agency’s prediction pieces for 2026. “Some fossil fuel executives already think the push by incumbents like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Woodside Energy to hike global production by some 50% by 2030, per the International Energy Agency, is creating a bubble. But renewable energy’s advantages will make the pop even worse.”
Public musings about that bubble have been intensifying at least since late August, when Prime Minister Mark Carney and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson travelled to Germany to pledge a first wave of Canadian LNG deliveries. “I think you’re probably talking about five to seven years,” Hodgson told Politico EU in an interview in Berlin.
At the time, multiple analysts contacted by The Energy Mix and Berlin-based Clean Energy Wire said they saw limited prospects for increased LNG trade.
“There is absolutely no window in the next 25 years when you can think, oh, the EU will really need that LNG then,” wrote Adrian Hiel, Brussels-based director of the Electrification Alliance. “It’s nothing but one effort after another to push expensive, inefficient gas out of the EU’s energy system.”
Hiel predicted an “enormous glut” of LNG between 2026 and 2030, as new U.S. supply enters the global market.
Toward the end of the year, as well, industry and trade media began reporting mounting evidence of declining imports to Asia, long seen and often over-hyped as the most promising source of steady demand for Canadian LNG.
On LinkedIn, Richard Brooks, climate finance lead at Stand.earth, hailed the Shell/Mitsubishi story as big news.
“This may be a sign that this project is not performing as well financially as expected, particularly in the face of a widely reported multi-year LNG supply glut that is under way. Long-term outlook is nosediving. Projects are being cancelled and delayed everywhere, even in the USA,” he wrote.
“It means the Phase 2 expansion, which has been referred to the Major Projects Office for fast-tracking, is delayed or dead,” Brooks added.
Reuters says LNG Canada referred questions about the sale to Shell and Mitsubishi. Shell declined comment, while Mitsubishi wasn’t reachable outside business hours in Japan. Rothschild didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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