Natural Gas

Liquefying natural gas means reducing its volume by a factor of 600 so that it can be moved by LNG carrier very long distances across oceans. Building an LNG chain is the most efficient way to monetize gas reserves located far from the major consumer regions of northeast Asia, North America and Europe.

Part of the industry since its first fledgling steps in the 1960s, our teams have acquired widely recognized skills and expertise in LNG projects, which are as complex as they are capital-intensive. Total is now one of the top three international LNG companies.

Total and LNG: the foundations of lasting growth

By creating new markets, converting natural gas to LNG generates new revenue streams that spur the economies of producing countries. In many cases, it also leads to a reduction in the flaring of associated gas produced with oil.

From the standpoint of importing countries, developing the LNG sector promotes the use of an energy source whose environmental footprint is smaller than that of other fossil fuels, while responding to concerns about energy independence and diversifying sources of supply.

For all these reasons the LNG sector is growing at a strong and steady rate of about 7% a year. LNG’s share of global gas consumption is expected to jump from around 7% in 2008 to almost 11% in 2015.

Total’s current LNG positions show that the strategy introduced in the early 2000s of building an integrated presence across the LNG chain was a sound one. It is based on a cross-disciplinary approach that leverages the interrelated capabilities of our Exploration & Production business in the areas of gas production and liquefaction and of our Gas & Power business in midstream operations — LNG shipping, regasification, storage, marketing and trading.

These interdependent activities are tightly coordinated. Indeed, the decision whether to sanction new liquefaction projects depends on the availability of long-term markets, on direct access to markets and on diversifying our portfolio of regasification facilities.

At the same time, gas trading and marketing operations need to expand to accommodate the arrival of these additional quantities of LNG.

In 2009, we reached a new milestone in the deployment of both aspects of our growth strategy. The commissioning of the Yemen LNG and Qatargas II liquefaction plants boosts our LNG production 50% in the near term, meaning that LNG will account for one-sixth of our total oil and gas production in 2010. And LNG purchases are expected to skyrocket from 2.5 million metric tons in 2008 to some 10 million metric tons in 2010.