n a shockingly humid June day in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, I walked through one of the 2012 World Gas Conference’s 10 thankfully well-cooled exhibit
halls in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Although I was nearly 10,000 miles from home, many of the 220 exhibitors were instantly recognizable — Chevron, BP, Shell, ExxonMobil. Their exhibits, however, were closer in size to small homes than the human-scale booths you often see in exhibit halls, even at other heavy-industry shows. And although I couldn’t even begin to comprehend some of the new and emerging technologies artfully displayed on supersized LCD flat screens and touchscreens, one thing was already very clear: With the plethora of countries represented by the attendees and exhibiting companies around me, natural gas’ rising prominence in the energy marketplace isn’t limited to just one country, or even a few. This is a global concern that spans from the United States to Europe to the Middle East to Asia and even Antarctica, and the World Gas Conference (WGC) is the Olympics of an industry on the brink of becoming the world’s main supplier of energy.
EYES AND EARS According to the International Gas Union (IGU), the orga- nization behind WGC, by 2030 the world will need at least 60 percent more energy than it needed in 2000. Citing the volatile pricing and politics of oil and last year’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, speakers at WGC2012 reit- erated over and over that natural gas can be a main ingredient in a diversified, stable energy mix.
Indeed, the resource is quickly rising in popularity. IGU
estimates that soon natural gas will surpass coal as the world’s second most popular energy source (behind oil), ushering in a “golden age of gas” in the coming years. Natural gas is considered by many industry experts to be more afford- able than other energy resources, cleaner burning than coal, and safer than nuclear power, but some reports show that extraction methods can have harmful effects on the environ- ment. Thanks to this less-than-perfect media image, an ever- increasing output of new technologies and discoveries in the field, and a constantly changing energy landscape, WGC has expanded beyond the borders of its own industry and is now a subject for the eyes and ears of a world waiting for solutions. One step into WGC2012’s media center and it was imme- diately apparent that those eyes and ears are many and eager. More than 350 journalists from Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and a long list of industry trade journals packed the room. “With the theme ‘Gas: Sustain- ing Future Global Growth,’ [the conference] is a platform to spark off strategic directions, policies, and competencies for the growth of the industry,” Datuk Anuar Ahmad, chairman