Business Times: Singapore prepares for shale impact

The shale revolution is transforming the US economy, and it could soon make its impact felt in Singapore.

A stronger US economy and lower energy costs would benefit Singapore, and a future hike in shale exports may tie in well with the Republic's ambitions to be a liquefied natural gas (LNG) trading hub. But the petrochemical, logistics and other industries serving oil and gas players will be keeping a close watch on how shale-driven tectonic shifts in the world's energy supply would alter their global competitiveness.

Shale gas production has soared in the US over the last five years, thanks to wider deployment of hydraulic fracturing technology, or fracking, to tap the unconventional source of gas trapped in impermeable shale rock.

The shale boom has lowered US domestic energy costs relative to Europe and Asia, and is credited with spurring the renaissance in US manufacturing. Natural gas there now sells for a fifth of the price it carries in Asia.

That picture of US economic strength is a positive one for the global economy and thus externally-oriented Singapore, said economist Manu Bhaskaran of Centennial Asia Advisors. MORE