257
CHAPTER THREE
Arab And World Developments
1-2 Natural Gas Trade
The volume of natural gas exportsworldwide increasedmoderately
by 4% in 2011, reaching to 1025.6 billion cubic meters against about
986.2 billion cubic meters in 2010. These figures cover gas exports
via both pipelines and as a liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Middle East recorded the largest increase of natural gas exports
in 2011 reaching to 158.7 billion cubic meters, equivalent to 23%,
compared with about 129 billion cubic meters in 2010. The increase
in Middle East is due to increase in Qatar: exports by 27.8%. Former
Soviet Union region came second with an increase of 11.6%,
followed by South America in third place with an increase of 8.5%.
Meanwhile, North America increased its gas export by 4.5% while in
Africa it decreased by 12.5%. Trinidad & Tobago in South, America
in decreased by 7.4%. Finally, in Asia Pacific, it decreased by 0.7%.
US net imports of natural gas via pipelines in 2011 totalled about
88.1 billion cubicmeters, which represented 14.07%of its total natural
gas consumption. Canada remained the largest supplier of natural
gas to USA. In 2011, US imported LNG from Trinidad and Tobago,
Peru, Egypt, Norway, Nigeria, Qatar and Yemen, representing about
10.2% of total US natural gas imports (10 billion cubic meters) and
about 1.6% of the US consumption of natural gas. US total exports of
natural gas in 2011 increased to 42.7 billion cubic meters. Its exports
to Canada reached 26.6 billion cubic meters and 14.1 billion cubic
meters to Mexico. Its exports of LNG to Brazil, Belgium, China,
India, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea totalled about
2 billion cubic meters.
Russia topped the world’s natural gas exporters, with a share of
about 21.6% of world exports in 2011. Its natural gas exports to most
