Gas to play a 'vital' role in world energy mix, Bokhanovsky says

HOUSTON. March 7. KAZINFORM Natural gas will play a vital role in the world energy mix, Leonid Bokhanovsky, the secretary- general of the 13-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum, said today at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston.

GECF members are responsible for 64 percent of the global liquified natural gas trade, and 42 percent of the global pipeline gas trade, Bokhanovsky said. Demand is increasing from the petrochemical and transportation sectors, he said. The group says its members hold about 62 percent of the world's proven natural gas reserves.

"The LNG market will grow considerably in the future, but not be globalized as comparable with oil," he said.

LNG is the fastest-growing component of the global natural gas market, increasing at a 7 percent annual rate over the last decade, according to Cheniere Energy Inc. (LNG), which plans to build an export terminal in Sabine Pass in Louisiana.

Global natural gas demand will grow 18 percent from 2012 to 2022 to 137.2 trillion cubic feet, according the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Energy Department, Kazinform has learnt from Bloomberg.

The forum's members include Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands and Norway have observer status.