You are cordially invited to the NRHU/CSD-CEMUS special guest lecture by Gavin Bridge, Professor of Economic Geography at Durham University.
Making a Global Gas Market: New Geographies of Liquefied Natural Gas
Professor Bridge will be discussing the current dynamic evolution in the global gas market, specifically developments in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector. The presentation will be followed by a discussion on what impact the expansion of natural gas supply/demand may have for global energy and climate governance; does this new and ever more complex shape of the global gas market imply a transition to a low-carbon economy or rather an increasing carbon lock-in underpinning the dominant fossil fuel narrative?
When: Monday, 12th of June, 15-17
Where: Hambergsalen, Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University
Abstract
Energy markets are an important contemporary site of economic globalization. In this presentation I examine the evolutionary dynamics of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector and its role in an emerging global market for natural gas. I show how LNG is a techno-material reconfiguration of natural gas that enables it to be moved and sold beyond the continental limits of pipelines; outline the evolving scale and geographic scope of LNG trade; and introduce the network of firms, extra-economic actors, and intermediaries through which LNG production, distribution, and marketing are coordinated. I extend recent work in economic geography on the organizational practices by which production networks are assembled and sustained over time and space to show how LNG is evolving from a relatively simple ‘floating pipeline’ model (of point-to-point, binational flows orchestrated by producing and consuming companies and governed by long-term contracts) to a more geographic and organizationally complex production network through which a global gas market is now taking shape for the first time.