World demand for natural gas is blossoming, and huge pipeline projects are in the works to serve that demand.

A dramatic surge in demand for gas pushes aside arguments for oil and coal. That demand is creating a vast network of new pipeline projects around the world to fill existing and anticipated requirements.
These new projects often move gas for thousands of miles for costs in the billions of dollars. The numbers and sizes of these projects continue to increase.
North America
Demand in the United States is expected to grow from 22 Tcf of gas in 2001 to 30 Tcf in 10 to 15 years, according to a report by the National Petroleum Council, but people can't use that gas if they can't get it. North America needs more pipeline capacity.
The United States needs an average of 2,000 miles (3,218 km) of new transmission line a year until 2010 at a cost of some US $2.5 billion a year, said Jerry Halvorson, president of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America.
The US pipeline system is going through its biggest growth spurt in 40 years, with 55 major onshore and offshore projects involving 7,800 miles (12,550 km) of line and more than $10 billion of investment already approved. Another $3.3 billion worth of projects awaits regulatory approvals.
For the long term, however, the pipelines will have to go where the gas is, and the biggest new supplies of gas available in North America are on the North Slope of Alaska, Arctic Canada's Mackenzie Delta, the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Nova Scotia.
On the North Slope, ExxonMobil, Phillips Petroleum and BP would like to monetize some 35 Tcf of estimated reserves. One alternative is a Foothills onshore gas pipeline traveling south to Fairbanks, Alaska, then southeast into Canada and continuing to the Chicago, Ill., area. It would cost $15 billion to $16 billion to move 4 Bcf/d.
At the same time, a host of Canadian companies, recently joined by Conoco and Devon Energy through acquisitions, would like to build a 1.1 Bcf/d line from the Mackenzie Delta down through the Mackenzie Valley to Alberta and then to Chicago. Figure some $7 billion, including $4 billion to get a line to Alberta and another $3 billion for a new pipeline to Chicago.
A third alternative proposed by Arctic Resources Co. contemplates an offshore pipeline from the North Slope to the Mackenzie Delta and down the Mackenzie Valley to Chicago. That line would cost around $9 billion, according to one estimate. Opponents put the cost closer to $13 billion, compared with $12.8 billion for both land proposals.
South America
Generally, people in South America are located where the gas isn't. That pushes the need for pipelines to get gas to markets.
Venezuela, with 146 Tcf of gas reserves, has more reserves than the rest of the continent combined, but it has very little distribution. Petroleos de Venezuela SA gas is working on a feasibility study to build a 124-mile (200-km) gas pipeline from offshore northern Colombia to Lake Maracaibo markets.
Brazil's market is much more sophisticated and demanding. It built the $2 billion Bolivia-to-Brazil pipeline, which will provide 7.7 Tcf of gas to Brazil during the next 20 years. But Brazil wants more gas, and Bolivia wants to double its exports.
The first step in creating those added exports will be another pipeline into Brazil by 2004 carrying some 350 MMcf/d of gas.
In another move, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina plan a gas-fired power plant and pipeline project. The project includes an $800 million, 750-mile (1,207-km) pipeline from Bolivia to Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, carrying 500 MMcf/d of gas for the power plant, 140 MMcf/d for Argentina and 700 MMcf/d for Brazilian markets.
Bolivia's most ambitious project involves Repsol YPF, BG, BP and Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivia in a $5 billion venture that would move some of Bolivia's estimated 32 Tcf of gas reserves through a 550-mile (885-km) pipeline to Chile. There it would be converted to liquefied natural gas (LNG) and shipped to Mexico for reconversion and distribution in Mexico and the western United States.
In Argentina, the Transportadora Sulbrasileira de Gas consortium was scheduled to start before the end of this year on a $265 million gas pipeline from Argentina to two gas power plants in Rio Grande do Sul province in Brazil with first gas due by 2003.
Another ambitious project brings the 13 Tcf Camisea field in Peru into production. That $3.1 billion project includes $450 million for a 250-mile (402-km) pipeline from the field across the Andes into Lima, Peru, and possibly on to the Peruvian coast. The partners expect first gas in 2003.
Europe
Western Europe wants more gas. Demand climbed 26% from 1989 to 1999, and it continues to increase. Russia has the biggest reserves in the world. It feeds gas to France, Germany and Italy, as well as to Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Turkey.
New pipelines are in the works to fill that demand. Among them, Russia and Poland are talking about building a pipeline from Russia through Poland to western Europe. As discussed, the line would cross the Belarussian border and move through Poland to Slovakia, where it would tie into an existing line.
The 400-mile (644-km) line would carry some 2.1 Tcf/year in additional gas on top of the 4.2 Tcf it already exports. Most existing lines bring gas through the Ukraine.
At the same time, Italy is talking with Russia about a new pipeline that would bring Russian gas through Turkey, possibly through the Blue Stream line being built across the Black Sea, into Italy.
Poland isn't sitting still, either. It has been talking about bringing North Sea gas through a planned 140-mile (225-km) $300 million Danish-Polish pipeline to Lithuania. That would reduce Lithuania's dependence on Russian gas. Under the contract, the line would deliver some 70 Bcf/year of gas for 8 years.
Statoil signed Norway's first gas supply contract with BP, a $3 billion deal that would move 56.6 Bcf/year of gas through the newly completed Vesterled pipeline from 2001 to 2016. Gas supplies will come from either Kristin or Ormen Lange field.
Africa
Much of Africa defines the term stranded gas, but that's changing. In the south, Sasol is building a 530-mile (853-km), 26-in. line from its gas fields in Mozambique down the east coast into South Africa. An initial volume of about 114 Bcf/year should start flowing in the second quarter of 2004.
Further into the future, Shell may be looking at a pipeline to bring its Kudu field gas from offshore Namibia into South Africa, and Forest Oil may need a line to get its Ibhubesi field gas from offshore western South Africa to industrial markets.
Farther north, Algeria has one pipeline moving its gas supplies to Europe, and it is planning another.
At Africa's northern end, Egypt plans to build a pipeline to furnish its gas to Jordan in the first link of an area network that would supply gas to Lebanon, Syria and Turkey as well. The plan calls for a 30-year supply of gas, starting in 2003.
The gas would come from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula fields through Aqaba and offshore Israel. Anticipated cost for the 530-mile (853-km) line will be about $700 million.
Middle East
Not satisfied with just a gas pipeline, Middle Eastern countries plan a $1 billion gas pipeline network among the six monarchies in the Gulf Cooperation Council. The grid would include Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Combined, they control about 15% of world gas reserves, led by Qatar's 460 Tcf. The new grid would complement the $4 billion Dolphin project, under construction, to move gas from Qatar to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Oman. Pakistan will be added later for an additional $3 billion.
Iran has the world's second largest gas reserves, about 812 Tcf, but it is behind its neighbors in marketing. It plans an extensive in-country network, and it has built a pipeline to Turkey.
Still on the drawing board and looking dim is a proposed pipeline to India, either by land through Afghanistan and Pakistan or by sea.
Mainland Asia
Asia demonstrates the demand for gas and the lengths people and countries will go to for supplies.
Probably the most talked about project is the gas pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Turkey, planned in conjunction with the oil pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey. That line comes with a whole set of possible modifications, including a no-go option.
If it stays a $1 billion, 625-mile (1,006-km), 254 Bcf/year, Baku-to-Tbilisi, Georgia-to-Erzerum, Turkey, gas line, then Azerbaijan will have to find more gas. Without more significant discoveries, the east end of the line may have to be extended across the Caspian Sea to tie into Turkmenistan's vast gas supplies.
Unfortunately for that plan, the Saipem 7000 pipelay vessel is laying its section of the world's deepest pipeline at 7,054 ft (2,150 m). When it's completed, the $3.4 billion, 750-mile (1,207-km) Blue Stream twin set of lines line will tie Samsun, Turkey, to the largest gas supply house in the world - Russia - from the Black Sea town of Bregovaya.
Russia also is the source for gas moving to the east. North and South Korea have been discussing the possibility of bringing gas from the giant Kovyktinsky gas fields near Irkutsk, Siberia, through North Korea to South Korea at a cost of some $11 billion to the Russian, Chinese and South Koreans. The 2,560-mile (4,100-km) line would cross through Mongolia to the Korean peninsula.
The most expensive line in the hard-planning stage is China's west-to-east gas pipeline from gas fields in the Tarim Basin in Xingjiang Province to the industrial east coast, a $14 billion, 422 Bcf/year, 2,600-mile (4,200-km) project. Four groups want capacity on the line if their gas projects produce commercial volumes.
The largest of the Tarim Basin's six major fields operated by foreign companies - Kela-2 - contains some 8.8 Tcf of gas reserves.
Still another Asian project would bring gas from Russia's Sakhalin Island to Japan and China.
ExxonMobil and Itochu are part of a consortium that plans to build one or more pipelines from Sakhalin Island to Japan as early as 2008. The line would bring gas from ExxonMobil's Sakhalin I project to Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, where one plan calls for the line to split into two lines, one to the Tokyo area, 1,250 miles (2,000 km) from Sakhalin Island. The Sakhalin I fields - Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi - contain an estimated 17 Tcf of gas.
Operating companies already have broken ground on BP's $565 million Nam Con Son pipeline, a 250-mile (399-km) undersea line from the Nam Con Son Basin offshore southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to the Phu My Power Plant onshore. When it's completed late next year, it will be the longest gas and liquid line in the world. Capacity is nearly 100 Bcf/year of gas, rising eventually to 246 Bcf/year.
Asia-Pacific
Government officials of the Philippines and Malaysia are discussing an undersea gas pipeline from fields on Sabah, Malaysia, to the Bataan Peninsula near Manila. If the discussions are successful, gas could begin flowing as early as 2006.
Malaysia has some 82.5 Tcf of gas, and 7.7 Tcf of that is off the northwest and southwest coasts of Sabah.
A Sabah-to-Manila line could be a part of a planned 2,600-mile (4,200-km), $7 billion trans-Asean gas pipeline project that would not only tie Southeast Asia together in a gas grid but would take gas up the east coast of Asia to China.
Indonesia also is trying to use its massive gas supplies domestically instead of exporting much of those supplies in the form of LNG. It plans to build a 1,550-mile (2,500-km) network to bring gas to West Java from South Sumatra at a rate of 600 MMcf/d.
Indonesia's Pertamina will invest $500 million in the line, but that money will include added development of the 3.8 Tcf Prabumulih gas field. This project also would be part of the trans-Asean gas grid.
Australia
One gas pipeline that may not be built is the proposed $500 million line from Phillips Petroleum Co.'s Bayu-Undan complex offshore northwestern Australia to Darwin. Tax increases from the new state of West Timor have temporarily postponed that project.
Another project that appears to be moving ahead hesitantly would bring gas from Papua New Guinea down the east coast of Australia.
Gas projects have emerged into a huge part of the world's energy infrastructure,
and political and environmental pressure will push world leaders to increase their reliance on gas for power and transportation.

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