Strong global gas demand underpin Shell’s integrated gas strategy

Global primary energy demand could double to 400 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (“Mboe/d”) in the first half of the 21st century, from some 200 Mboe/d in 2000, and 270 Mboe/d in 2011, driven by the non-OECD economies. Some two thirds of energy consumption in 2030 could be in the non-OECD, compared to 56% today.

Meeting this growth in demand will require large scale and sustained investment in all forms of energy, with an energy mix that is 80% hydrocarbons today, and it will be dominated by hydrocarbons for some time to come.

Natural gas, which is the cleanest burning fossil fuel, has an important role to play, with more than 250 years of global supply established, and emerging exploration potential, especially in shale gas. Shell expects global natural gas demand to increase by 60% from 2010 to 2030, reaching 25% of the global primary energy mix and within that, strong growth in LNG.

LNG demand has doubled to 200 million tonnes per annum (“mtpa”) in the first decade of this century. Shell expects LNG demand to double again to 400 mtpa by 2020, and potentially reach 500 mtpa by 2025. Meeting this demand growth will require substantial industry investment – potentially more than $700 billion – and continued innovation and interdependency between supplier and customer countries.

Shell is the industry leader in LNG and in gas-to-liquids, and is developing innovative new integrated applications, such as gas-to-chemicals, converting ethane into commercial petrochemicals, and LNG for transport, which offers a lower emission and lower cost alternative to oil fuels.

Shell has 22 mtpa of LNG on stream today, and is building 7 mtpa of new LNG capacity in Australia that will increase Shell production by 30%. In addition, the company is maturing over 20 mtpa of further LNG options, in Australia, Indonesia and North America, that should drive Shell’s LNG leadership into the next decade.

For the longer term, Shell has gas-focused exploration programmes in exciting acreage positions such as China, South Africa and Ukraine, which have large scale resources potential, and is assessing over 5 mtpa of LNG to transport opportunities world-wide.

Voser concluded: “Technological innovation continues to differentiate Shell from our competition and today Shell is the industry leader in LNG, FLNG and GTL.”

“We are using Shell’s scale and innovation to continue to drive gas growth through integrated value chains. Our portfolio and opportunity set in global gas is unrivalled in the industry today. There is more to come from Shell”.

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