MB Civic

Steve Horn at FDL interviews Powers ..

shale gas[], it’s importance has been vastly over-stated. We do not have a 100-year supply of shale gas. The increasing demand, which has been brought about by the low prices of the last few years, is going to lead to another 1970’s-style gas crisis. That will happen sometime between 2013 and 2015. [] While there’s been a lot of promotion of the 100-year supply myth – the facts simply just do not support it … if we look at Canada right now, the biggest supplier of gas to the U.S. by a huge margin, the second is Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago has declining reserves and is also one of the biggest suppliers of LNG in the Western Hemisphere [who knew??] . So what you have is a very tight world LNG market. The world LNG market is about 11 trillion cubic feet a year. And that will go up with Australia, but that will be somewhat offset by Qatar already at maximum production. Indonesia is a top five producer, and they’re going down; Oman is a top ten producer and they’re going down. We’re seeing increasing demand in the Middle East and huge demand in Asia. I also think China will become an importer of LNG … [China has] had a huge increase and they are going to suck up any available cargoes. And there’s a huge push for them to get away from coal because of the pollution we’re seeing in Beijing and Shanghai; it’s killing people and leading to social unrest. They’re not just going to wait for solar panels and other things, this is stuff they can do right now. These facilities are being built right now. The world LNG market is tight, and it’s going to be tight for a long time

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