Posted on 10/15/2013 8:25:12 PM PDT by TexGrill
DAEGU, South Korea — Asia’s large-scale gas importers, long saddled with premium prices, say a cheaper alternative lies several thousand feet below North American soil, where companies are unlocking enormous gas reserves from shale rock.
The shale boom has already revolutionized the gas market in the United States and Canada, giving both countries not only a reliable domestic supply but also the ability to sell overseas.
Asian utility and gas company executives, speaking this week at a global energy forum here, have said that North America’s gas wealth could prove nearly as transformative across the world, leading to the first significant West-to-East gas trade and driving down prices in a region that consumes two-thirds of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Lower gas prices would be particularly important for Japan, where utility companies are bleeding money to import fossil fuels while their nuclear plants sit idle. Japan owed its record trade deficit in the first half of this year to the rising prices of fuel, including LNG coming from Australia and Malaysia.
Japan and South Korea are the world’s two largest importers of LNG, and both have cut deals in recent months to buy gas from U.S. terminals, in some cases footing some of the development costs. For gas to be exported across the world, it must first be liquefied — essentially, turned into LNG — at facilities that cost several billion dollars. That LNG is then shipped in tankers that store the gas at 260 degrees below zero.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Keep our gas for domestic use! (Not for generation of electricity!) Let them buy our coal! Let us also use our coal for electricity generation.
Gas can be produced and transported without further processing. Pipelines are already in place to take it where it is used. Coal has to be loaded and transported anyway. Can be shipped for just transportation cost. No further processing required.
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