Canada stands poised to become a major source of natural gas for Asiaamid uncertainty over the future of energy exports from the UnitedStates.

But the country risks missing that opportunity if industry doesn’t move fast enough, oil and gas companies warn.

Thediscovery of new ways to draw energy from massive pools of shale gashas boosted North America’s reserves so dramatically that companies havescrambled to find new markets.

But fast-growing demand for gas in China – and even Japan,where nuclear energy is expected to play a more limited future role – ismore likely to be fed from British Columbia than Texas or Arkansas,Murray Nunns, the president of Penn West Petroleum Ltd., said Monday.

“There’san ultimate belief that the U.S. won’t export natural gas, because ofenergy security concerns,” he said. That makes Canada the most likely“safety valve for North America.”

Mr. Nunns’s comments stem inpart from Penn West’s partnership with Mitsubishi Corp., the Japanesecompany that has been studying how to export gas from the B.C. coastjointly with Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Korea Gas Corp., according tosources.

Penn West hopes to gain access to such a facility throughits relationship with Mitsubishi, which, Mr. Nunns said, “believesCanada is the logical jurisdiction to achieve that from, not the U.S.”

Companiesin the U.S. have, of course, pursued a series of LNG export plans fromthat country. Last month, for example, Cheniere Energy Partners receivedapproval from the U.S. Department of Energy to begin gas exports fromthe Gulf Coast area, although it must still obtain the blessing of theFederal Energy Regulatory Commissions.

But the actions of agrowing number of important international natural gas players appear toaffirm a growing view of Canada as an important source of global gasexports.

At least four LNG export terminals have been envisagedfor British Columbia’s West Coast. Of those, two have been envisioned bymajor LNG shippers. Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, the world’ssecond-largest LNG exporter, is pursuing one of those after a recentpartnership deal with Progress Energy Resources Corp. for a stake inBritish Columbia natural gas fields.

“If you look at SoutheastAsia’s demand, we could handle multiple [LNG] projects off the WestCoast,” Michael Culbert, Progress’s chief executive officer, toldreporters. Western Canada’s gas fields could support LNG exports of upto four billion cubic feet a day, he said. That figure is not far offthe 5.5 billion cubic feet a day that are expected to flow from B.C.’stwo major gas fields, the Montney and Horn River, by 2020.

Shell,which is working with Mitsubishi, is also a major global natural gasshipper. In May, it announced a decision to build the world’s firstfloating LNG facility off Australia, and some in the industry havesuggested that that technology would be a good fit for B.C., whoserugged coast makes it difficult to build a huge facility on land.

Inan interview Monday, Shell Canada president Lorraine Mitchelmore saidthe company is “not necessarily looking at this [technology] for here” –but is a strong believer in the need to ship away Canadian gas.

“It’sreally essential for us to get exports to the West Coast,” Ms.Mitchelmore said. “We’re the third-largest [gas producer] in the world.... We should be looking at different customers.”

Such plans areespecially important to Canadian producers, who have long relied on aU.S. market that now finds itself flooded with a surge of domesticproduction.

But for Asian consumers, Canada may also make sense.Canada’s West Coast is about as far from South Korea as Qatar, anothermajor gas source. And Canadian gas is better situated than that in theU.S., where the largest shale plays are in the south and east of thecountry.

The Montney and Horn River plays together contain anestimated 1,500 trillion cubic feet of gas, and though only a fractionof that is likely to ever be produced, it is located just hundreds ofkilometres from Pacific tidewater. Calculations done by CN Rail suggestthat it takes 51 fewer hours to sail to Tokyo from Prince Rupert, forexample, than from Los Angeles.

Canadian producers are alsotempted by the potential for greater profit in Asia, where gas sellsnearer the price of oil, and far above its current rates in NorthAmerica.

“We think it will lift the price of not only natural gasin Western Canada but natural gas in North America,” Mike Graham, thehead of Encana Corp.’s Canadian division, said Monday. “There’s a bigincentive to invest in LNG.”

But, Mr. Nunns warned, industry mustmove quickly to seize that opportunity, lest the dream of West Coastexports turn into the dream of Canadian Arctic gas, which remainsstranded without a pipeline despite decades of effort.

“Theeconomic window ... will come and go,” he said. “We saw that with theMackenzie Delta. If something doesn’t happen facilitated by all parties,the economic opportunity bypasses the area.”