2026-04-07
16 分钟While oil is dominating the headlines in the wake of the Iran conflict,
there 's an equally unsettling story unfolding in the natural gas markets.
I'm Alison Nathan and this is Goldman Sachs Exchanges.
For today's episode, I'm sitting down with Samantha Dart,
co-head of Global Commodities Research, to talk about the implications of a natural gas shock,
which may in some cases actually be more damaging than an oil shock.
Sam, welcome back to Exchanges.
Thanks for having me.
Sam, we have talked a lot on this podcast about the impact that the war in Iran is having on oil markets.
But today, I want to dig into the implications for natural gas markets and liquefied natural gas.
Which is commonly referred to as LNG, because I think it 's actually an area that a lot of our listeners underappreciate
in terms of this conflict and in terms of its importance in the economy.
So let's just start at a high level.
First, give us the basics.
What makes natural gas markets fundamentally different in how they respond to geopolitical shocks?
Yeah, I think the main difference is the seasonality of demand, the fact that you need so much of it in the winter.
And maybe we should take a step back and think, what do we use this thing for?
And there are three main uses.
The first one you can think of is electricity generation.
Just you have a lot of utilities they have in the same way they have nuclear plants and coal plants,