While natural gas producers operating in North America's shale fields are dreaming big about future customers in Europe and Asia, building expensive infrastructure to liquefy and export gas across the globe will be no easy task.

Potential sponsors of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects along the U.S. Gulf Coast are expected to make final investment decisions this year and in 2012. In doing so, they're considering spending billions of dollars to open up a large and self-contained U.S. gas market to an expanding global LNG trade.

Demand for LNG is being driven by utilities and industrial customers looking for alternatives to coal. In the aftermath of Japan's earthquake and nuclear disaster, uncertainty about the future of nuclear power as a regular source of electricity is also boosting long-term prospects for gas.

Whatever the global demand for gas, exporting LNG is still a new idea in the United States. And there remain significant hurdles to financing and completing the projects, Barclays Capital gas analysts noted in a report this week.

Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass LNG import terminal in southern Louisiana is awaiting approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on a request to build facilities to liquefy U.S.-produced gas and ship it overseas.

In its Jan. 31 application to FERC, Houston-based Cheniere argued that U.S. LNG exports would strengthen the overall gas market. Gas demand slowed at times during the recent economic recession, Cheniere noted, forcing producers to stop drilling and slow investments as prices dropped below $4 per million British thermal units.

That gas can be sold at higher prices on the emerging global market, Cheniere argues, and in doing so, companies can keep gas production going in the United States.

A game for big companies

To secure financing for industrial facilities that cool gas into a liquid form, which can then be shipped in football field-sized tankers, Barclays said LNG projects will most likely need to secure contracts that tie natural gas to oil prices. Further, the bigger the sponsor, the better, which gives the upper hand to multinational oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC.

"The development of these projects is likely to require the involvement of large, credit-worthy entities with a significant history of operating such projects," said Barclays' team of gas analysts led by James Crandell in New York.

To make it worthwhile, Barclays said, exporting a certain amount of U.S. gas in the form of LNG will have to be a better option than selling it to North American consumers. The trick will be nailing down LNG buyers at a price that sells the gas at a premium.

Creditworthiness is a huge piece of the puzzle because of the risks developers face with natural gas prices. Because the U.S. gas market is detached from Europe and Asia, foreign buyers might be reluctant to sign onto long-term contracts.

"Buyers are accustomed to oil-linked pricing of long-term LNG contracts, with formulas protecting the buyer when prices spike and the seller in periods when prices drop below a certain level," the analysts said. "Overseas buyers would likely be wary of taking on price risk in markets completely segregated from their own, especially if they have no other exposure to or expertise in North American gas markets."

Asian market beckons

Outside of the United States, Asian energy consumers are preparing to buy more gas off of the high seas.

Indonesia has said it might send as many as 21 more LNG cargoes to Japan this year to make up for any shortfall in Japan's fuel supply.

Woodside Petroleum, the sponsor of a $3.5 billion LNG project along the west coast of Australia, plans to start shipping gas to Asia's economic powerhouses in early fall.

Michael Chaney, chairman of Woodside, yesterday warned company shareholders against Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's proposal to factor carbon emissions into the economy through a carbon tax and emissions trading program. He joined critics in Australia's coal industry, who have assaulted Gillard's plan.

"Placing a carbon price on Australian LNG risks two outcomes," he said. "Customers either look past Australia for cheaper supplies of LNG produced by countries which do not have a carbon price, or they continue to use higher-emitting energy sources such as coal."

He argued that any national program that "inhibits the competitiveness of Australian LNG" risks being counterproductive, given gas's cleaner environmental footprint.