Natural gas knowledge
Where it is
The geographic location of gas reserves obviously mirrors that of oil: Russia, Iran and Qatar approximately have 44% of the total. Just like oil, the exploitation of gas fields takes place in a non-uniform way. For example, the Middle East countries extract little gas as compared to the reserves available (they have 40% of the world reserves and only produce 15% of the natural gas consumed in a year world-wide) whereas the U.S. and Western Europe show high levels of extraction (as compared to the available reserves). This means that, if the current production level remains unchanged and if no other fields are discovered, those countries (13 years for North America and approximately 21 for Europe) will deplete their reserves in a few years and will need to resort to imported gas only.
(Source: eni, World Oil & Gas Review 2011)
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