Oil, NatGas, & Politics

[GunnyGene]

Pretty interesting story this morning. Don't bother talking about environmentalists. It's boring. This is about global politics and big money.

The United States is poised to flood world markets with once-unthinkable quantities of liquefied natural gas as soon as this year, profoundly changing the geo-politics of global energy and posing a major threat to Russian gas dominance in Europe.

"We anticipate becoming big players, and I think we'll have a big impact," said the Ernest Moniz, the US Energy Secretary. "We're going to influence the whole global LNG market."

Mr Moniz said four LNG export terminals are under construction and the first wave of shipments may begin before the end of this year or in early 2016 at the latest.

“Certainly in this decade, there’s a good chance that we will be LNG exporters on the scale of Qatar, which is today’s largest LNG exporter,” he said, speaking on the margins of the IHS CERAWeek energy summit in Texas.

Qatar exports just over 100 billion cubic meters (BCM), though Australia is catching up fast as the offshore Gorgon field comes on stream. It may pull ahead of Qatar later this decade.

Mr Moniz said the surge in US output from shale fracking has already transformed the global market. "We would have been importing a lot of LNG by now. Those cargoes would have gone elsewhere and have in fact had a significant impact in the European market,” he said.

Gas frackers assembled at the world's "energy Davos" in Houston said exports could ultimately be much higher, potentially overtaking Russia as the world's biggest supplier of natural gas of all kinds.

"We're just fifteen years into a 150-year process," said Steve Mueller, head of Southwestern Energy, the fourth biggest producer of gas in the US .

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...gas-exports-eyes-global-energy-dominance.html

 

[John A.]

People have been telling certain political parties for years that natural resources is what it's about. Anyone remember the oil embargo's of the 70's?

Heck, even OPEC was "supposedly" designed around using oil for stabilization of the oil market to consumers, is a cartel and can be effectively used as a weapon or monetary fund attrition.

Though I'll be entirely honest. I'm not real comfortable with fracking as a whole. I'm not going to lie about it. Lots of things can happen, but I'm primarily worried about groundwater reserves.

It doesn't matter how much oil and gas can be exported if we're importing potable water.

With that said, we were also once the worlds #1 coal exporter and look where we're at with it now.

 

[MikeD]

There has been a big push to get everyone on natural gas which as sold as a cheaper alternative. Just see how cheap that alternative becomes when the global market opens up.

Business has learned to commoditize every freaking thing on the planet. I figured we were screwed when I saw the first story of a guy getting ticket for collecting rain water.

it's all about money at any price.

 

[OhioArcher]

People have been telling certain political parties for years that natural resources is what it's about. Anyone remember the oil embargo's of the 70's?

Heck, even OPEC was "supposedly" designed around using oil for stabilization of the oil market to consumers, is a cartel and can be effectively used as a weapon or monetary fund attrition.

Though I'll be entirely honest. I'm not real comfortable with fracking as a whole. I'm not going to lie about it. Lots of things can happen, but I'm primarily worried about groundwater reserves.

It doesn't matter how much oil and gas can be exported if we're importing potable water.

With that said, we were also once the worlds #1 coal exporter and look where we're at with it now.

Coal didn't fit into the UN's vision of global harmonization...