Influence of Shale Gas Development on Offshore Plant Business and Countermeasures

MasterTo overcome the recent surge in the oil price and the global economic downturn, and to develop alternative energy, shale gas development around the United States in North America, based on horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology has been materialized recently. This worldwide development of shale gas is getting more attention from many countries while natural gas including shale gas has been anticipated as one of the important energy source to replace the role of the petroleum in the future energy resources. In addition, Shale gas is rich in reserve and has been expected as an energy alternative in the perspective of the global warming because the level of its carbon dioxide emissions is half than the coal and only two-thirds of the oil. Shale gas has become an increasingly important energy source in the United States since the start of this century. In 2000 shale gas took only 1% of U.S. natural gas production. But, it was over 20% by 2010 and predicted by the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) that 46% of the United States' natural gas supply will come from shale gas by 2035. Some analysts expect that shale gas will greatly affect the frame of the worldwide energy resources and foresee that the increased shale gas production in the US and Canada could refrain Russia and Persian Gulf countries from dictating higher prices for the gas they export to European countries, so new paradigm in world natural gas supply chain will form and ultimately will make huge impact on the global energy market and related industries. This study focuses on the effect of the global shale gas development on the energy industries, especially on the offshore business and finally looks into how Korean shipbuilding & offshore engineering companies should cope with this global change in energy industry and what strategies should be made to be survived in the offshore business sector