Natural Gas Glut Starts to Dwindle
The global natural gas surplus is disappearing sooner than expected, thanks to rebounding economies and troubles in Japan and the Middle East, according to panelists at the Offshore Technology Conference on Wednesday.
The global recession, combined with a surge in natural gas production from prolific shale formations in the United States, sent supplies of the blue-burning fuel soaring and prices plummeting beginning in late 2008.
Some of that supply-demand imbalance had reversed as economies started to recover, but the pace has picked up, said Rafael McDonald, an associate director with research firm IHS-CERA.
The economies in China, India and Brazil were lightly touched by the global recession and are still growing quickly, McDonald said.
And some economies hit hard, such as South Korea's, have rebounded stronger than before, while back-to-back cold winters in Europe improved demand there, he said.
While Libya's oil and natural gas production is modest, the ongoing war there has cut into its marginal supply to Europe.
And Japan's demand for liquefied natural gas to fuel power plants soared after the March earthquake and tsunami knocked out nuclear power plants.
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