Turning the world’s abundant supply of natural gas into commercial products will grow in importance over the next decade. Clean-burning natural gas is becoming the fuel of choice for generating electric power in North America. In other regions, liquefied natural gas (LNG) offers a way to commercialize gas without building a pipeline infrastructure. Demand for natural gas for downstream products, such as ammonia, ethylene, and propylene, will continue to be strong in all regions.

And just over the horizon is the prospect of gas to liquids (GTL) technology — the conversion of natural gas into premium liquid hydrocarbons and other specialty products — and the continued development of fuel cell technology. Both of these emerging industries could further increase the demand for natural gas.

Increased demand for gas will spur demand for virtually all of Halliburton’s services — energy services as well as engineering and construction. The technologies described in the other flagships will be valuable in the gas monetization business. In addition, the technology leadership of the Engineering and Construction Group in gas processing plant technology is a critical part of this flagship.

Natural gas exploration and production requires drilling many wells, because the wells often experience rapid rates of declining production. This points to the value of efficient, low-cost drilling systems, such as Geo-Pilot and Anaconda, and efficient production technologies, including intelligent completions and management of reservoirs to maximize the recovery rate. In addition, the floating technologies used in deep water — FPSOs, mooring and docking systems, pipeline and terminal design and construction — play a large role in developing natural gas reserves.

However, the largest part of the gas monetization flagship is the proprietary processing technology, the engineering skill and the construction infrastructure of Halliburton’s Kellogg Brown & Root business unit, which is described in the following section.