GGIT cost estimates
This page details the regional cost estimate for the Global Gas Infrastructure Tracker (GGIT) that form the basis of capital expenditure projections in our summary tables and briefings/reports. Note that the GGIT is an ever-evolving database, and these cost estimates are updated on a yearly basis with each official release. Because of this, global, regional, and country-level cost estimates vary through time, and efforts are made to make these estimates robust while still representative of the current database at any stage, as described below.
LNG terminals
October 2023 data release and briefing
GEM has identified reported cost estimates for just over 25% of projects in the GGIT database collected from media, company websites, and other sources. These reported costs are used to estimate the costs of projects for which GEM does not have cost data. To do so, these reported costs are normalized by the capacity of each terminal, to estimate the cost (in USD) to build a terminal per unit mtpa. The upper and lower 10% of outliers are removed from the distribution to provide a more robust average, expansion projects are removed to ensure the costs are based on new builds, and only one cost is used per unique LNG terminal, in cases where multiple trains or phases exist. From there, costs are grouped by project type — import vs. export and onshore vs. floating — as these different facility types carry different capital expenditure costs. For all onshore terminals, regional averages are used if there are at least three data points, and global averages are used otherwise. For all floating terminals, global averages are used. These average cost estimates are used to extrapolate capital expenditure for terminals that do not have reported cost estimates in GGIT. See the table below for regional cost averages used for extrapolation.
| Import terminals | Export terminals | |||||||
| Onshore | Floating | Onshore | Floating | |||||
| Region | Cost (US$ million per mtpa) | Number of data points | Cost (US$ million per mtpa) | Number of data points | Cost (US$ million per mtpa) | Number of data points | Cost (US$ million per mtpa) | Number of data points |
| Africa | 386.3 | 2 | 165.3 | 2 | 679.2 | 6 | 669.4 | 5 |
| Americas | 301.8 | 4 | 165.3 | 0 | 748.6 | 34 | 669.4 | 7 |
| Asia | 365.0 | 22 | 165.3 | 13 | 634.6 | 7 | 669.4 | 4 |
| Europe | 444.7 | 7 | 165.3 | 19 | 1150.1 | 8 | 669.4 | 2 |
| Oceania | 386.3 | 0 | 165.3 | 4 | 770.0 | 6 | 669.4 | 0 |
| Global | 386.3 | 35 | 165.3 | 38 | 783.5 | 61 | 669.4 | 18 |
Gas pipelines
December 2023 data release and briefing
The GGIT database has cost estimates for just over 25% of projects, which are used to estimate cost projections at the subregional level. To do so, these costs are normalized by the length of each pipeline to estimate the cost (in USD) to build a pipeline per unit km. The upper and lower 2.5% of outliers are first removed from the distribution to provide a more robust average, and any expansion projects are also removed to ensure the costs are based on new pipeline builds. From there, costs are grouped by subregion, and an average is taken. In cases where pipeline cost data are not available for a given subregion, the broader average regional cost is used. This is the case for Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Oceania’s regional cost per km is used for these subregions, and this cost estimate is based on Australia and New Zealand’s cost data. See the table below for these costs.
| Region | Subregion | Cost (million US$ per km) | Number of data points going into average |
| Africa | 3.10 | 29 | |
| Northern Africa | 2.65 | 26 | |
| Sub-Saharan Africa | 3.93 | 5 | |
| Americas | 4.31 | 217 | |
| Latin America and the Caribbean | 2.96 | 43 | |
| Northern America | 4.65 | 179 | |
| Asia | 1.78 | 456 | |
| Central Asia | 2.28 | 21 | |
| Eastern Asia | 1.43 | 374 | |
| South-eastern Asia | 2.44 | 8 | |
| Southern Asia | 2.26 | 21 | |
| Western Asia | 3.60 | 41 | |
| Europe | 3.00 | 134 | |
| Eastern Europe | 2.85 | 74 | |
| Northern Europe | 5.76 | 10 | |
| Southern Europe | 2.36 | 55 | |
| Western Europe | 4.76 | 13 | |
| Oceania | 2.85 | 17 | |
| Australia and New Zealand | 2.85 | 17 | |
| Melanesia | 2.85 | 0 | |
| Micronesia | 2.85 | 0 | |
| Polynesia | 2.85 | 0 |
Oil pipelines
This section will be updated with the upcoming oil pipelines data release in Q2 2024. If you need equivalent cost estimates before then, please reach out to the Project Manager, Baird Langenbrunner (baird [dot] langenbrunner [at] globalenergymonitor [dot] org).
