Major growth in global gas use by 2025

31st January 2014

By: Ilan Solomons

Creamer Media Staff Writer

  

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Electric services company General Electric’s (GE’s) White Paper report, ‘The Age of Gas and the Power of Networks’, predicts that global gas consumption will increase to about 4 800- billion cubic metres a year (bcm/y), rising significantly from the current figure of about 3 500 bcm/y by 2025.

“The US and Canada produce a combined 25% of the world’s natural gas supplies, compared with Africa, which produces only about 4% of the world’s natural gas resources,” said GE CEO and president Tim Schweikert, who was addressing the Wits Business School Infrastructure to Support New Oil and Gas Resources in Sub-Saharan Africa seminar in October.

However, he noted that great opportunities exist across the African continent, particularly in South Africa, with discoveries of offshore gas deposits and promising shale gas exploration targets in the Karoo basin.

Schweikert stated that South Africa could learn a great deal from developed gas- producing regions, such as North-East Asia, the US and Europe, which built gas pipelines in the 1950s and were currently expanding them.

“These pipelines are being expanded horizontally through the expansion of the pipeline networks and vertically by linking into other energy resources, such as renewable- energy sources.”

“Renewable-energy sources, such as photovoltaic- and wind-powered turbines, do not produce a constant supply of energy, owing to sunlight and wind not being continuously available. Therefore, they require support from other energy sources, such as gas, to provide them with a continuous power supply,” said Schweikert.

He noted that gas and renewable energies could complement each another in a power grid, as both were relatively cost- effective and low-carbon-dioxide-emitting forms of power production.

Schweikert stated that GE had major ongoing oil and gas operations in countries such as Angola and Nigeria, where the company was manufacturing subsea production trees, which consisted of various assemblies of valves, spools and fittings, used to monitor and control the flow of production wells and assist in offshore gas explorations as a key component of a subsea gathering systems.

“The trees also manage the fluids and gas that are injected into subsea wells,” he added.

Schweikert stated that GE was also establishing offices in Mozambique to service the country’s developing oil and gas sectors.

Meanwhile, the company announced one of the largest power agreements in its history last year, which entails GE supplying Algerian national electricity and gas company Sonelgaz with power generation equipment and services for six new combined-cycle power plants valued at $1.9-billion.

GE’s report states that Egypt is at a critical juncture in the development of its energy system.

“Egypt has the advantage of having fairly mature gas and power grids, but they are concentrated along the Nile river region. Most of Egypt’s oil and gas resources are relatively remote – in the midst of deep desert or in deep water off the coast. The existing power grid into greater Cairo and areas to the south of the city has stressed capacity at times, with reserve margins falling below 10% in recent years,” states the report.

GE believes that a diversified electricity strategy is an attractive option for Egypt, as fuel risk increases and new large centralised generation projects face delays.

Earlier this month, daily online newspaper Egypt Independent reported that a gas processing plant, which could add 22% to Egypt’s natural gas supply, was one year behind schedule because local residents in the town of Idku, east of Alexandria, continued to oppose oil firm British Petroleum’s plans to build a processing plant on the town’s seashore.

Natural gas, which was due to come on-stream in 2014, will now be delivered by 2015 at the earliest.

The newspaper further reported that State-owned Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company field development VP Raafat al-Beltagy, who is a supporter of the Idku project, warned that delays to the project would have negative ramifications for Egypt’s electricity sector, the main local consumer of natural gas.

“Electricity consumption is growing by 7% every year,” said Al-Beltagy, who added that the country would face a crisis if the project did not go ahead.

The Egyptian government was spending $11-million each day to make up for the gas shortfalls caused by delays in the Idku project going on-stream with fuel imports, he said, noting that fuel was less environmentally friendly than natural gas for power generation.

Further, the GE report states that, given the uncertainties and the pace at which larger central generation projects may be built in Egypt to meet power demand, distributed energy provides a viable alternative.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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