Shell says nuclear accident in Japan to support world demand for long-term gas

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe's largest oil company, said the nuclear accident in Japan will support the global demand for natural gas in the long term.
Shell plans to increase the supply of liquefied natural gas to Japan, the world's biggest buyer of LNG. The cost of building nuclear power generation will increase as governments increase security and compliance requirements for operators, said De la Rey Venter, head of Shell's global LNG.
"It will have long-term impact on gas demand, simply because it is unlikely that all these facilities back to work," he said in an interview yesterday in Amsterdam. "Japan was all an aggressive plan for new construction, but the program will face problems of acceptance by the public and that the program will be less extensive and will take longer than expected. Much of that gap will be filled structural change by natural gas. "
Tokyo Electric Power Co. is struggling to gain control of its plant in Fukushima Dai-Ichi after the March 11 earthquake, the strongest of Japan. The utility has begun to schedule power outages to conserve electricity to meet a shortfall in energy supply.
"In places like the Latin America, Europe, this will have a lasting effect on public opinion, which will push the measure" of building nuclear power capacity, Graeme Wildgoose, an LNG consultant Poten & Partners , said in an interview yesterday. "The policy is driven by public opinion and nobody is going to sanction a nuclear project, if the entire population against it."
Japan will require another 10 million cubic meters per year of LNG imports in the medium term, Philip Olivier, President of GDF Suez (GSZ) of LNG, the forecast yesterday. Asia-Pacific growth in demand for LNG will increase by one percentage point to about 6 percent a year following the accident, he said.
"This is not an isolated incident. It will resonate in other places," said Venter. "It will add to the cost of compliance with nuclear safety in the industry. It strengthens the case of gas."