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The world gas business amounts to a patchwork of regional markets, because gas is mainly distributed through pipelines confined to individual big markets such as the U.S. LNG, a super-chilled form of gas that is loaded on tankers, has the potential to change the market because it can be shipped around the world, making it a truly global commodity like oil. Global gas consumption was 2.75 trillion cubic meters in 2005, of which only 6.9% was delivered in the form of LNG and 19% by international pipeline shipments, according to the BP Statistical Review, an industry bible. But global LNG capacity is expected to rise to 476 billion cubic meters by 2010 from 246 billion cubic meters a year in 2005, according to the International Energy Agency, the industrialized world's energy watchdog.The Wall Street Journal today carried a story that 14 of the world's largest gas producers are meeting in Doha next week to further talks about the possibility of an OPEC like consortium for natural gas.Needless to say that changes the entire dynamic of natural gas pricing going forward which until now has been a local market and pricing therefore varying country by country.

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