Russia is forcing Exxon Mobil to abandon plans to export natural gas to China. Nigeria is requiring explorers to share output with its citizens. Indonesia will cut sales to Japan.
Countries holding almost half the world's gas are curbing shipments to meet growing domestic use, hurting importers.
Prices for the heating fuel may rise 50 percent within five years on the New York Mercantile Exchange as a result, said Chris Jarvis, president of Caprock Risk Management in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. He anticipated the rally in gas prices during the past month.
While raising energy costs, the policies will limit opportunities for Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell, which are struggling to reverse a five-year production decline of 23 percent in the North Sea and 42 percent in the Gulf of Mexico.
Natural gas use is rising 2.5 percent a year, three times the rate for oil, according to statistics compiled by BP. While natural gas provides 22 percent of the world's energy, compared with 23 percent for coal and 40 percent for oil, the world's known gas reserves may last about 63 years, compared with 41 for oil, the BP statistics show.
"All the gas is concentrated in places where you don't have access," said Frank Harris, co-head of the natural gas practice at Wood Mackenzie Consultants, based in Edinburgh, an adviser to 24 of the world's 25 biggest oil and gas companies. It's "a major concern for oil majors," he said.
In Russia, the energy ministry told Exxon Mobil in August that gas from the $17 billion Sakhalin-1 project off the eastern coast should be sold into the domestic market, not exported. President Vladimir Putin wants the gas to feed an economy that is growing 7.6 percent annually. Putin two days ago said that his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, would also be a "nationalist."
Meanwhile, Exxon planned to build a pipeline to China, where the 10 billion cubic meters, or 3.5 trillion cubic feet, a year of Sakhalin gas could meet 18 percent of Chinese needs, based on 2006 consumption.
Changing export policies in Nigeria and Egypt threaten projects that would ship 45 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas to the world market annually, equal to about 33 percent of current supply, Harris estimates. The 45 million tons are almost four times larger than the LNG imports by the United States in 2006, according to the Energy Department.
President Umaru Yar'Adua of Nigeria said last month that a new state-run company would start requiring explorers to sell a portion of output locally. Nigeria, Africa's most-populous nation, holds the continent's largest gas reserves, yet only about 40 percent of its population of about 140 million citizens has access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
Total, Chevron, Shell and ConocoPhillips have postponed two LNG projects, at Brass and Olokola, until the government sets its policy on supplies to the domestic market. The gas would have been more than enough to meet annual consumption in India, based on BP statistics.
Jarvis of Caprock Risk said that restrictions on liquefied natural gas exports would tighten global energy markets.
Demand for LNG, or gas chilled for shipment in tankers, is the industry's fastest-growing business, with growth of about 10 percent a year, Shell and Total estimate.
Compared with fuel oil, natural gas costs 18 percent less, based on the amount of energy in each fuel. Crude prices have tripled since 2002, pushing governments to seek more of record industry profits and limit access to regions that typically harbor natural gas too.
"The correlations between gas and crude oil will become tighter as the LNG market becomes more important on a global scale," Jarvis said. Natural gas in New York may rise to $15 per million British thermal units by 2013, he said.
"When you are in a supply-constrained situation, prices will rise," said Darren Jones, president of global gas for ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company.
Harris said that he expected oil and natural gas prices to converge. If that happens, a $10 million investment in natural gas on Nymex would return 22 percent, or $2.2 million.
Indonesia lost its top ranking as an LNG exporter to Qatar in 2006 as the most populous nation in southeast Asia diverted exports to meet soaring domestic needs. The economy grew 6.2 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, near the fastest pace in 10 years.
PT Pertamina, the state oil company, will lower supplies to a Japanese buying group by 75 percent after the current contract expires in 2010, its vice president, Iin Arifin Takhyan, said in October.
"By 2011 we see a very tight global natural gas market," said Stacy Nieuwoudt, an analyst at Tudor, Pickering, Holt Securities in Houston.
Increasing demand and a shortage of supplies meant that Japan and South Korea this winter paid more than double the U.S. benchmark gas price to attain cargoes from as far away as Trinidad, the biggest LNG supplier to the United States.
"We have seen this year a situation where there was strong appetite for LNG, forcing buyers to pay oil prices or even a premium," said Philippe Sauquet, senior vice-president of Total Gas & Power, a unit of Total.
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