Natural Gas in Asia

Book excerpt: The next two decades will be crucial for Asian gas markets. This period will determine whether natural gas will become an important fuel in the major energy markets of China, India, Japan and Korea, or will remain a "promising" but peripheral energy source Natural Gas in Asia is a new study onthe future of natural gas in the major energy markets of Asia. The future energy needs of China, India and the rest of Asia are considerable. Will gas supplies respond to this expanding demand? Large scale projects will have to be implemented in Russia, the Central Asian Republics and the MiddleEast to bring required supplies to Asian markets in the years to 2020. This book assesses the economic opportunities, political obstacles and other challenges to these projects. In order to succeed, huge pipeline infrastructure will need to be built over long distances to bring gas to these markets,as well as significant numbers of new LNG terminals. There are chapters on the major current and potential gas markets in Asia: China, India, Japan and Korea. As well as chapters on the potential supply of pipeline gas and LNG to Asia from: Russia , Siberia, the Far East the Far East and a number of Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Animportant aspect of the next two decades will be the extent to which the region can develop pipeline gas sources to supplement existing large scale LNG imports.Gas markets will need to be created in countries such as China and India, which are at the early stage of introducing large scale natural gas use in cities. There is a further commercial challenge for these countries in developing gas-fired power generation at a cost which may be greater thangeneration based on domestically produced coal. But considerations of local and global emissions may give extra value to gas fired generation, as has happened elsewhere in the world.