14 November 2012, Sweetcrude, LONDON – UK-based energy business consultants, Douglas Westwood, says in a report that the fastly-evolving floating liquefied natural gas, FLNG, market could attract as much as $47.4 billion in investment over the next five years.
Murray Dormer, author of the report, said in the analysis that Asia was set to be the focus region for the booming segment, accounting for around a third of the FLNG sector spending.
Australasia will reap 22% of the market, largely due to a number of liquefaction projects, while Latin America will take in 17% of global FLNG expenditure with both offshore liquefaction and regasification vessels, Dormer predicted.
He said that FLNG was an increasingly attractive option for a number of reasons, including political and security risk to ongoing supply.
“Boundary disputes, threats of civil unrest and war and terrorism are all ever-present challenges that the oil & gas industry is well-used to encountering.
However, by siting infrastructure offshore, FLNG could help mitigate some proportion of risk in regions where these issues are apparent,” Dormer said.
The analyst added that the use of offshore regasification alleviated the problems posed by local opposition to the construction of new onshore infrastructure.
