By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter
Natural gas is expected to play a more prominent role in the years ahead, not only because it is the cleanest fossil fuel but also because of its abundance and availability, said Gas Exporting Countries Forum secretary general Dr Seyed Mohamed Hossein Adeli.
The main energy challenge currently is how to balance and meet the increasing global demand for secure energy in the medium and long term, while serving the global climate change efforts in tandem, he said at the opening session of the 3rd Brookings Doha Energy Forum yesterday.
“Amid all uncertainties, there is one pre-determined element: The world will need more secure ever increasing amounts of environmentally friendly energy, used in a more efficient way, available to a larger share of the world’s population; this is where we see enhanced role of natural gas, and of course, our forum- GECF,” Adeli said.
Global demand for natural gas is projected to double in the first half of this century or even earlier, and hence requires robust policies to encourage gas production.
In terms of energy perspectives, the GECF projects that primary energy demand will continue to increase while oil and coal market shares are expected to decline. The biomass, nuclear, hydro and renewables gain share, but natural gas will benefit the most.
The GECF expects that the share of natural gas in the world consumption will accelerate in the next two decades. In the forum’s outlook, natural gas demand is set to increase with a growth rate of 2.5% that represents an acceleration of the growth rate witnessed over the last 22 years.
Nevertheless, the complexity of energy markets, the uncertainty of energy policies towards the energy mix preference of consuming countries, as well as the effective efforts that governments have to implement towards achieving of the ‘green house gas emission’ targets, translate the challenges for natural gas and leads the way to increase its share and compete with other fuels.
“This is what we at the GECF are trying to achieve to make natural gas, as an environmentally friendly and cost-effective, energy of choice by increasing the market share of gas in the global energy mix; and contributing to the stability of the world gas market.
“Indeed, we believe that natural gas will continue to take market share away from coal and oil in the power generation sector and gas usage as the feedstock is expected to increase sharply over the outlook period, in part because of the high cost of naphtha in the petrochemical sector, that provides a competitive advantage of natural gas over liquid-based feedstock. Other parts of the economy such as residential, commercial and industry will also receive their fair contribution of gas.”
In transportation sector, despite its slow penetration, natural gas is gaining relatively reasonable market share, Adeli said.
