Natural Gas
The opportunity and uncertainty contained in the natural gas market means very different things to different players in different parts of the world. In North America, a situation of perennial oversupply compounded by the discovery and exploitation of shale gas reserves has meant very low prices in recent years – that is until this spring, when an unseasonably wintery month of March hit much of the US and sent heating-related demand for natural gas supplies soaring.

For major consumers in Asia, natural gas represents a fast-track route for China to reduce its environmentally catastrophic industrial coal usage. In Japan it offers an alternative to nuclear energy for power generation, an enormous issue in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster and one likely to influence policy for years to come.