MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

World gas conference in Argentina to discuss supply-demand balance

IGU president Ernesto Lopez Anadón said natural gas will provide 32% of global energy in 2030

Ministers, industry leaders and experts from 81 countries are meeting in Buenos Aires for the 24th World Gas conference with one main topic in the agenda: the balance between natural gas supply and demand.

The conference which was officially opened Monday and for the first time is being held in Latinamerica brings together representatives from the world’s main gas producing and consuming countries and 200 top officials from the energy industry.

Other issues of the agenda include environmental impact, long term development strategies and regional integration.

According to a release from the conference, private sector officials “will present their vision of the business; share and debate on the latest technologies and will propose long term strategies for a sustainable development of the industry”.

The International Gas Union, IGU, president, Argentina’s Ernesto Lopez Anadón said last August that the global crisis forced the cancelling or slowing down of many projects for the gas industry because of the dramatic drop in demand and a contraction in investments, although currently “costs are decreasing and there is greater availability of funds”.

“No crisis is positive, but this last one forced a pause which helped the industry recover its development targets and reshuffle sector programs”, said Lopez Anadon.

“We will analyze new global projects and prospects until 2030, when the industry will be poised to supply 32% of world energy demand, four percentage points above the current demand”, he added.

He also called for joint private and government efforts to ensure that “natural gas can cross borders” for which stable legal frameworks are essential thus rendering the proper conditions for investment and gas sources development.

On Wednesday a strategic panel with officials from the European Union, Russia, Brazil, Japan and Algeria will address long term supply. The United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Trinidad Tobago have also been invited.

The panel will provide the latest viewpoints regarding the implications of gas supply and demand, as well as energy interdependence, particularly in relation to the growing need for ensuring the provision of energy at a global level.

The Ministerial Strategic Plan aims to extend the first experience jointly arranged by the International Gas Union (IGU) and the International Energy Forum (IEF), when they organized a meeting of Energy Ministers and CEOs of the main gas companies -the First Ministerial Gas Forum in Vienna, Austria, in November 2008. Such event was considered an important step forward to promoting and strengthening a global dialogue between natural gas producing and consuming countries worldwide.

During the First Ministerial Gas Forum, the Energy Ministers of Algeria, the Netherlands, Iran, and Germany exchanged opinions on “World Gas Markets: From Regional to Global”, and the future challenges of the natural gas industry.

They concluded that demand is growing most rapidly, mainly in newly emerging countries like China and India, as well as in the Middle East. Acknowledging that natural gas reserves are amply available to meet future demand, Ministers noted that the most recent estimates put the global investment required in the gas industry up to 2030, at 5,5 trillion US dollars or about 230 billion annually.

Ministers also emphasized the need to improve energy efficiency and energy conservation across the board in both gas consuming and producing countries, not only to curb global CO2 emissions, but also to increase export potential of gas producing countries.

The International Gas Union (IGU) was founded in 1931. It is a worldwide non-profit organisation registered in Vevey, Switzerland with the present Secretariat located in Oslo, Norway.

The objective of IGU is to promote the technical and economic progress of the gas industry. The members of IGU are associations and entities of the gas industries in 81 countries. IGU working organisation covers all domains of the gas industry from exploration and production of natural gas on-or offshore, pipeline and piped distribution systems to customers' premises and combustion of the gas at the point of use.