WILL GAS BENEFIT FROM JAPAN’S NUCLEAR CRISIS?

SINGAPORE, March 21 (Bernama) -- The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima
nuclear power complex in Japan has definitely not helped the nuclear
industry, which was in a resurgent mode, say several analysts here.

Ravi Krishnaswamy and Subramanya Bettadapura, who are respectively the Vice
President and Associate Director of Energy Practice, Frost & Sullivan Asia
Pacific, have described the event as a "huge public relations disaster for the
entire nuclear industry at the very least even as workers race against time to
bring the situation under control."

They said while some countries had chalked up policies to introduce nuclear
as a fuel mix option, "now some countries including Germany and Switzerland were
either shutting down old nuclear plants or putting on hold further
developments."

"Still, many other countries including USA, Italy, Poland and Indonesia have
vowed to go ahead with their plans," they said in a statement here Monday.

There seems to be one emerging beneficiary amid this fast changing scenario
-- natural gas.

They said demand for natural gas had strengthened on the prospects of
increased LNG (liquefied natural gas) cargoes to Japan.

"This demand increase is more likely to be long term rather than short
term.

"The half a dozen or so nuclear power plants shut down in Japan will be
supplemented by natural gas and coal fired power plants," they said.

They also believed that the shut down of nuclear plants could be for long.

"We are likely to see prices for both coal and natural gas increasing in the
short term," they said.

Japan is the world’s biggest importer of LNG and sources almost 70 per cent
of its annual LNG imports from Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.