A new currency is emerging in world markets. Unlike the dollars, ruros and yen that trade for tangible goods and human services, money exchanges hands for pollution - particularly emissions of carbon dioxide, which are caused by burning fossil fuels and are the leading cause of global climate change. Carbon credits, as they are called, are poised to transform the world energy system and thus the world economy.

As gas becomes a more important input to industrialized economies and the volume of gas traded in international markets increase, large consuming countries will begin to focus increasingly on the security and availability of their gas supplies. In addition, given the apparent similarities between the development of oil and gas markets, the question arises as to whether the structure of the gas market will evolve towards that prevailing in the market for crude oil. Concern for maintaining a secure supply of reasonably priced natural gas, which up to now has taken a back seat to its sister fuel, will increasingly be viewed as a vital national interest. This change is bound to influence the "geopolitics of natural gas". This paper investigates key variables that might influence this geopolitics and postulate consumer countries response to the new reality of a gas-fed world.

In 1992 Cabot LNG, a relatively small Boston-based LNG importer and owner of the Everett LNG receiving terminal just north of Boston, approached the government of Trinidad and Tobago about developing a new LNG export project. Although three attempts had been made previously to develop LNG in Trinidad, nothing had come of them and the government had largely concentrated on attracting intensive gas-based industries to the country. The industries had come but had not greatly prospered. Cabot's approach came soon after the government had decided to liberalize its economic policy; new sources of revenue were badly needed. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed by Amoco and British Gas (both had significant gas prospects in Trinidad) with Cabot, and the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) to promote an LNG export project, and they launched a feasibility study in 1993. Atlantic LNG, the joint venture company eventually set up to own and run the project, was formed in 1995. Sales contracts were signed with Cabot and with Enagas of Spain in 1995 for a total of 3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG. Construction started in 1996. The first cargo, bound for Boston, was loaded at the end of April 1999. Design work and sales negotiations for a two-train expansion with a further 6.8 mtpa capacity (Trains 2 and 3) were started in early 1999 and construction started in 2000. Train 2 started up in August 2002 and Train 3 in May 2003. Train 4 is scheduled to begin operations in early 2006, while Train 5 is still looking for approval. The development has been rapid by the standards of LNG projects and judged a success for all parties involved.

This paper sets out to explore why the venture was so successful, what projects were competing and why they experienced different, often relatively less favourable fates. The question of competing projects in this case is quite complex and indeed the outcomes of competing projects appear different for different stakeholders: the buyers of LNG, the government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the project promoters.

This paper explores the reasons why Turkmenistan has found it so difficult to market its natural gas. It looks at the relative roles played by geopolitical factors, the economics of transport and sale of gas, and how these affected the routes Turkmenistan currently uses, as well as the projects that were put on hold.

Discussions of trade in natural gas in South America's Southern Cone (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay) began as early as the 1950s. But it was not until 1972 that the first international gas pipeline in the region, linking Bolivia and Argentina, was built. It was twenty years later before significant gas pipeline projects integrating Chile and Argentina were proposed, followed by one large project connecting Bolivia and Brazil.

This paper examines three historical cases to understand why there was a 25 year lag between the first international pipeline project and the others, and to uncover key factors that determine why particular pipeline projects were built while similar proposed pipelines languished.

In the early 1990s the giant Soviet enterprise of Gazprom began work on a new project to export gas across Belarus to Poland and Germany. Close examination of this project offers crucial insights into the potential for Russia's future gas exports because it was the first (and so far only) large new Russian gas pipeline project constructed after the dissolution of the CMEA system and the Soviet Union.

A snapshot of the central Mediterranean region starting in the 1970's provides an ideal case for the analysis of decision making in cross-border natural gas transport projects. During this period the massive size of Algeria's gas reserves were well known and Sonatrach, Algeria's state-owned oil and gas company, actively sought to monetize this gas through exports. Across the Mediterranean, both Italy and Spain were seeking to expand natural gas consumption. Projects to import gas from Algeria via pipeline or by ship were proposed, studied, and discussed at the highest levels of government and in state-owned energy companies.

The Arun natural gas project in Northern Sumatra has been perceived as the most lucrative LNG operation in the twentieth century. This paper analyzes the issues involved in the transmission of that gas to potential buyers and why Japan became Arun's only foreign market in its first two decades.