The Pricing of Internationally Traded Gas,

ed. Jonathan P. Stern

This is the first book in any language to focus exclusively on the pricing of internationally traded gas. Gas accounts for around 25 per cent of global energy demand, and international gas trade is growing rapidly. The first chapter of this book examines some of the analytical issues and the contribution that economic theory can make to the study of international gas pricing. This is followed by an historical chapter tracing the origins and development of international gas pricing in the four regions which dominated natural gas trade – North America, Europe, LNG importing Asia, and the former Soviet Union – up to the early 2000s. The main part of the book focuses on developments in the 2000s, with a view to how gas pricing is likely to develop during the 2010s and beyond. Aside from the established gas trading regions, the book includes chapters on international gas pricing in: the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa; Latin America and the Caribbean; south-east Asia; India; China; and Pacific Basin LNG markets. These national and regional studies are followed by thematic chapters on the globalization of gas markets and prices, and the potential development of a ‘gas-OPEC’.

The concluding chapter considers the extent to which international gas pricing is likely to remain regional, or whether gas could become a ‘global market’ – with a global price – akin to the crude oil market. A third possibility is whether international pricing is likely to come under the control of a small group of countries, similar to the influence of OPEC in the crude oil market. Overall it is argued that domestic gas price reform will increasingly be driven by international gas prices and that, as gas becomes a more important fuel in the energy balances of many countries around the world, it is becoming increasingly urgent for its pricing to reconnect with economic and market fundamentals, rather than continue to be determined by crude oil and oil product prices, or politically driven subsidies.