Oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, on Wednesday revealed its global gas strategy, saying that global primary demand could double to 400m barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the first half of the 21st century.
In 2000 this figure stood at 200m boepd and last year totalled 270m boepd.
Speaking at a management day with investors, Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser outlined the group's gloabal gas strategy: "Strong growth in gas markets, especially Integrated Gas, is a major opportunity for Shell and our shareholders. Our Integrated Gas earnings have more than trebled in the last five years, reaching $9bn over the last year, driven by liquefied natural gas and gas-to-liquids, and we see growth opportunities to invest over $20bn here for 2012-15.
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"We are aiming to develop profitable new gas supplies to meet the market's growing demand for clean and affordable low carbon energy. This plays to Shell's technology and financial strength."
The company also said that around two thirds of energy consumption in 2030 could be driven by countries which are not signed to the Convention on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), compared to the current level of 56%.
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 liquefied natural gas (LNG).
The company told investors that demand for LNG has doubled to 200m tonnes per annum (tpa) between 2000 and 2010, and expects this to double to 400m tpa by 2020, and as much as 500m tpa five years later.
"Meeting this demand growth will require substantial industry investment - potentially more than $700bn - and continued innovation and interdependency between supplier and customer countries," the group continued.
"Shell has 22m tpa of LNG on stream today, and is building 7m tpa 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 5m tpa of LNG to transport opportunities world-wide.
Voser ended his speech with a firm message: "There is more to come from Shell".
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