Exxon Mobil Corp expects strong demand in Asia Pacific to absorb fresh gas supplies after doubling third-quarter output from a year ago on production from new liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains in Qatar, a senior executive said on November 02.
However, unconventional gas in Asia will take longer to develop unlike in the United States due to the lack of pipeline infrastructure, even as ExxonMobil prepares to start exploratory drilling in coalbed methane (CBM) blocks in Indonesia.
"In my mind, we can't get gas fast enough as an industry because of the demand out there," Linda DuCharme, Vice President at ExxonMobil Gas and Power Marketing Co told Reuters at the Singapore Energy Week. In Asia's developing countries, total energy demand will double in the next 20 years while natural gas demand will grow by 125 percent, she said.
Exxon Mobil's available gas supplies for sales have risen to 12 billion cubic feet (339.8 million cu metres) per day in the third quarter, up from 8 billion cubic feet per day in the same quarter last year.
Supplies from Asia Pacific and the Middle East are around 5 billion cubic feet per day, DuCharme said. Producers are eyeing Asia to provide homes for new capacity as the world struggles to absorb supplies with many developed economies still in recovery mode.
Qatari oil minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said that demand and supply could become balanced in three years but the International Energy Agency (IEA) says the oversupply could last a decade.
Between 2009 and 2010, ExxonMobil and Qatar Petroleum started up four 7.8 million tonne-per-year (tpy) LNG trains. The US energy major also has stakes in two LNG projects in Australia and Papua New Guinea with total output of 21.6 million tpy and will be completed in 2014.