Never too early to plan

This article is part of Executive’s special report on the oil and gas sector. Read more stories as they’re published here, or pick up October’s issue at newsstands in Lebanon.   There’s a joke in the oil industry that goes: “The lead drilling engineer for an exploration well walks into his boss’ office and says, ‘Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.’ ‘What’s the bad news’, the boss asks. ‘We didn’t find oil,’ the engineer replies. Curious, the boss asks, ‘Ok, what’s the good news?’ ‘We didn’t find gas.’” While natural gas is a lucrative resource — just ask Qatar — which was identified by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in 2013 as the world’s fastest growing fossil fuel in terms of consumption, the joke’s punch line comes in part from the fact that gas is difficult and often costly to transport. The two methods for moving natural gas from