The golden age of gas is coming sooner than we thought.
The devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which set off the worst nuclear crisis in a quarter of a century, was a game-changer in global energy markets.
Already, some experts, including the International Energy Agency, see a fast-approaching end to the global gas glut that has persisted for nearly three years. Until recently, many analysts expected that to last for at least another two years, and possibly until 2015.
Instead, the huge worldwide surplus of liquefied natural gas (LNG) - super-chilled gas that can be shipped across oceans in tankers - is now "set to fade away" within a year, the investment bank Merrill Lynch predicts.
Spot European gas prices, driven by the UK gas market, have "surged" in the past two weeks "for fear of an unexpected rise in Japanese gas demand and a drain of LNG supply from the EU gas market to the Pacific Basin", it says. For the first time in more than two years, European spot gas is trading above gas sold under long-term contracts indexed to oil prices.
"Moreover, the potential negative impact on nuclear plant construction in Japan and around the world … put a structural bid under long-term European natural gas and coal prices," the bank says. "Long-term prices have strengthened across the board."
In the long term, it is gas that stands to benefit the most, as European and many other governments worldwide remain deeply concerned about climate change and rising carbon emissions. Gas is cleaner-burning than coal, with gas-fired power plants emitting about half as much carbon dioxide per unit of electricity generated as their coal-fired counterparts.
Even in the short term, the immediate effects on global gas markets of this month's Japanese catastrophe could be intense. Japan faces a power generation shortage of 12 gigawatts in the eastern part the country - an amount equivalent to the total installed electrical capacity of the UAE.
Furthermore, Germany has reacted to the continuing Japanese nuclear crisis by taking 5gw of its own nuclear power capacity offline, following an order by Angela Merkel, the chancellor, to suspend for three months a plan to lengthen the working lives of the country's oldest plants. With elections coming up and popular opposition to nuclear power growing in Germany, many analysts expect the mothballed atomic plants to be permanently closed.
In 2007, when a previous earthquake damaged an 8gw Japanese nuclear complex, forcing a two-year closure for repairs, Japan turned to both LNG and fuel oil to meet power demand. In those days, before Qatar, the world's leading LNG exporter, brought massive new production capacity into service, spot LNG cargoes were in short supply and their prices quickly climbed to record levels.
Four years on, and the spreads between oil and gas prices worldwide have seldom been wider. Crude commands double its historic premium over gas, as Middle East unrest bolsters oil prices while gas lags.
Japan has significant unused thermal power generation capacity at both gas and oil-fired plants, and the current market fundamentals strongly favour gas. There are some technical limitations to the amount of LNG the country could import and use in its power sector, at least until it builds more transformers to enhance the interconnectivity of its power grid, but its preference is clear: roughly 4gw of Japanese oil-fired generation capacity remains idle while spot LNG cargoes are being diverted to Japan from South Korea and Europe.
Japanese LNG imports will surge in the coming quarter, Merrill Lynch predicts. The bank now expects Japan's LNG imports to rise by 4.1 million tonnes this year instead of remaining flat at 70 million tonnes per year.
Russia, the world's biggest gas supplier, is eager to help to make that happen.
Marrying humanitarian concerns with economic expediency, Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, has offered to divert Sakhalin Island LNG shipments to Japan. He proposes to free up cargoes by sending more gas by pipeline to Europe. Royal Dutch Shell, which operates the Russian LNG facilities, has promised to make the fuel available, enabling its Russian partner Gazprom to offer up to eight extra cargoes to Japan over the next two months.
Russia has also offered Japan interests in Siberian gasfields.
At the same time, European gas supplies from Africa are threatened by civil war in Libya, operational problems in Algeria and the prospect of heightened political unrest in Nigeria as that country heads towards a presidential election this summer.
"Europe's dependence on Russian gas will likely rise again," predicts Merrill Lynch. "Combined with Japan's power crisis, which could structurally raise LNG demand in the coming years, this could provide support to long-term forward gas prices in Europe."
Offsetting the outlook for sharply higher gas prices to slow a potential global shift to gas from higher carbon fuels, major gas consumers are accelerating their hunt for supplies.
China last year became the third Asian country after Japan and South Korea to sign long-term LNG contracts with emerging Australasian suppliers that were big enough to underpin financing for large gas export projects in Australia and Papua New Guinea.
Shell said last week it had found shale gas in China. The announcement followed a similar development in India last month, raising the prospect that the two most populous Asian countries might soon develop significant additions to their domestic gas supplies.
Shale exploration in eastern Europe is on the rise. Even Algeria, following a disappointing bidding round for conventional oil and gas prospects, has announced its intention to pursue domestic gas shale development with or without foreign assistance.
Iraq, which is believed to have huge unexploited conventional gas potential, this month announced plans for a fourth auction of oil and gas licences, this time focusing on gas exploration prospects. It also started talks with Jordan over joint development of the cross-border Risha gasfield.
Meanwhile, US gas-shale drilling, which contributed mightily to the worldwide gas glut that emerged just as the recession undercut demand, continues apace, leading some US and Canadian gas producers to pursue export options.
More and more it looks like the time for gas has come.