China's coast has 6 new liquefied natural gas terminals under construction. They are predicting that by the end of 2015 they will have doubled the amount of LNG (liquefied natural gas) they can import.
On the other side of China, a new pipeline from Turkmenistan is pumping gas.
Deregulation of America's Natural Gas Policy of 1978 has encouraged entrepreneurial energy companies to gamble on new technologies allowing them to extract gas trapped in shale beds.
Now the incentives were greater for recovering it because it could get to market through pipelines newly obliged to offer "open access" to all comers. It changed how shale gas is traded globally.Large quantity of LNG export capacity was created with American markets in mind. If shale gas success is repeated elsewhere, a major source of energy will become available from a more diverse source of suppliers in more free markets. So different from the boom in oil after WWII-this growth can become superior political weaponry power to those with the biggest reserves. Shale could diminish the political clout of Russia, Venezuela, and Iran as part of their gas revenues.
Another form of energy, "tight gas" is found in sandstone and coal bed methane is promising.
In the future, gas frozen into hydrates in the planet's continental shelf is becoming an energy speculation. It is the cornucopian belief that human ingenuity will always find ways to increase availability of resources.
The World Energy Outlook sees the "Golden Age of Gas" world production rising trade in gas between the world's major regions double. Coal use will decline and by 2030 gas will surpass it providing one fourth of all the world's energy
Companies are sinking well tests in Poland. South Africa, which may have the largest reserve has attracted Shell Oil Company who is also in China, which may have the largest source on the planet.
The big question is will mankind's insatiable demands exhaust the planet's finite resources? Or will human ingenuity lead to the more efficient use of existing raw materials and the discovery of new sources of supply?
