25 Years On; Still Seeking Truly Global Market

摘要

"Toward a Truly Global [Gas] Market." That was the headline that launched World Gas Intelligence on its way in January 1990 — and it remains a never-quite-achieved aspiration for a fuel that then looked to be an almost sure winner in the great international energy game. What has changed for natural gas in the 25 intervening years? Or put another way, why hasn't the industry lived up to that happy prospect and is there a chance it will yet do so? In 1990, a "global market" meant "the continuing growth of trade between geographically discrete markets that are expanding steadily," to quote that original WGI piece (WGI Jan. 1 '90). For several years, that growth did, indeed, take place, although North America was never pulled definitively into the loop. And the single pricing structure that the phrase "global gas" now conjures up to many never developed. On the contrary, gas pricing worldwide is much more disparate now than it was 25 years ago — and therein may lie the key to the unhappy state in which the global gas industry finds itself today (WGI Dec. 10'14).