We won't run out of natural gas resources any time soon. This is to produce and liquify "stranded" natural gas resources. Methane is _much_ more abundant than

We won't run out of natural gas resources any time soon. This is to produce and liquify "stranded" natural gas resources. Methane is _much_ more abundant than liquid hydrocarbons. There are many more ways to produce methane geologically/biologically than there are to produce liquid hydrocarbons. To elaborate, there are three main end-member types of source rocks (organic-rich shales, etc that produce hydrocarbons when heated). All of them will produce methane once temperatures are high enough. However, only two of these are capable of producing oil at all, and that's only in a relatively narrow window of temperatures. Furthermore, type III source rocks (land-derived organics) are the most abundant of the three types, and they only produce gas. Interestingly, if you look at current proven global reserves, you'll find they don't reflect the difference in abundance. (~1.7 trillion barrels liquids vs. ~1.2 trillion barrels oil-equivalent of gas) This is because exploration and development focuses on the more profitable liquid hydrocarbons. There are several _huge_ gas fields (>100 TCF... That's mind-blowingly large) that have been discovered but never appraised, developed, or produced. There's a lot of others that are likely to be of a similar size but have never been drilled at all. The reason is purely due to the way oil and gas are traded. From an economic perspective, natural gas (methane) is typically sold on long-term contracts. There's no global market for natural gas. It's not a commodity. Instead, all trading is region-specific. You can only sell what you can deliver, and natural gas has to be delivered through pipelines. Therefore, if the natural gas resources are not close to a heavily populated area, you can't sell them. These are referred to as "stranded". LNG (liquified natural gas), however, can be (and is starting to be) sold globally as a commodity similar to liquid hydrocarbons. Southeast Asia and Japan have a large demand for natural gas and relatively limited supply. Furthermore, the gap between demand and supply is predicted to grow over the coming decades. Australia has large "stranded" gas fields that Chevron and Shell have held rights to for many decades. Australia also happens to be close to the markets with the greatest predicted demand for LNG. Based on this, the super-majors (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, Total) have started to pour _huge_ amounts of money into LNG facilities. Australia is currently home to the largest of these projects due to its location relative to markets with the largest demand. At any rate, there's the big picture in a nutshell. I'm a exploration geologist in the oil industry, so I have a slightly different perspective than some, but hopefully that gives you some idea of the reasons behind projects like this.