4.1. Asia Pacific region
Government policies have an imperative role in the development
of LNG in Asia Pacific region. As far as LNG development is
concerned, they can be grouped in two broad categories, those
concerned with domestic infrastructure, energy and environment
matters, and national interest.
In the first category, government policy, for example to
liberalize domestic gas and power industries has an important
effect on LNG business as noted above. Similarly, government
position on environmental protection is an important factor on
the demand side as Japan illustrates. The Japanese government’s
commitment to greenhouse gas reduction under Kyoto Protocol
to the UN framework convention on climate change will be
difficult to achieve without greater use of natural gas over other
fossil fuels, therefore, Japan switched to natural gas use in order
to fulfill his assurance. Other Asian countries are also following
the same policy, as Japan, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Hence, because of government policies for environment protection,
more Asian countries are switching from coal and oil
consumption to gas consumption.
Today, gas trade in the Asia Pacific region is mainly in the form
of LNG, and in fact Asia dominates the world’s LNG market. In
contrast, international trade of natural gas via pipelines is quite
limited in the Asia Pacific region. Among Asian countries Singapore
imports pipeline gas from Malaysia, Thailand from Myanmar
(Burma), and Hong Kong from China. Currently, the major
importers of LNG in Asia Pacific region are: Japan, Korea and
Taiwan. With plenty of LNG supply available, new buyers will be
important for expanding the gas market in Asia. In addition
to pipeline, two countries India and China may soon start
importing LNG.
On the supply side, LNG exporters in the Asian region include
Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and Brunei as shown in Fig. 2
(Ball et al., 2004).
Only 10–15% of the LNG consumed in Asia is currently
imported from Alaska and the Middle East, including Abu Dhabi,