Conventional Gas: Staying Closer to Home

Thanks to natural gas from shale deposits (which are “rocking the world”), America has become the biggest gas producer in the world, a virtual gas exporter; LNG supertankers are changing course from the US to Europe or Asia.

Yet another trend is changing the face of the global natural gas market. Conventional gas producers appear to be forgoing their exporting activities, because of a need to satisfy their home markets. Going local, if you will.

According to a report on The National while nations in the Middle East possess over 40 percent of the world’s conventional natural gas reserves, most can’t meet their domestic demand. Only Qatar is able to fill the bill, but it still has a moratorium on exports.

And that’s why the global trend, it writes, is for countries to focus on their own natural gas needs, with a prime example being Peru, which operates a giant gasfield called Camisea. Realizing the domestic need for its own gas, Peru has invited international companies back to the table to come up with a new deal.

Last September, the government ordered the main operating consortium, led by the private US company Hunt Oil, to hold an auction to sell gas to the local market instead of exporting it.



Now some portions of Camisea are reserved for domestic consumption for the next several years, which Peru’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Pedro Sanchez, should fill Peru’s domestic gas needs.

Continents away, an LNG plant in Indonesia is planning on halting exports, and Nigeria is also giving its domestic natural gas market priority as part of a master plan.

Meanwhile, states in the United Arab Emirates are finding they can’t make much of a profit on their gas exports – yet another reason to keep the gas close to home.

Read ' The new economics of gas', click here.