The answer, somewhat perversely as far as Australia is concerned, is that it probably doesn't matter because gas is going global.
What does matter in the gas debate is that demand is rising inexorably towards what Slugcatcher likes to think of as "Voelte's point" - that time in the history of the petroleum industry when a molecule of gas commands the same price as a molecule of oil.
Woodside Petroleum boss, Don Voelte, has been talking for some time about his gas being as valuable as everyone else's oil when compared fairly, that is on its heating ability - and perhaps a little more than oil given its lower greenhouse gas footprint.
But for most of the time Voelte might as well have been singing in the wind because no one was listening.
The problem was that gas was seen as a captive commodity, and only as valuable as the nearest pipeline. Oil could be shipped anywhere.
Time's are changing, fast, and the reason change is likely to accelerate is because of that most fundamental of all economic forces, price - coupled with the rapid expansion of the trade in liquefied natural gas.
Until recently most LNG developments were tied. Ships plied a set route because of a set contract.
Today, the operator of an LNG project with spare capacity (in a world desperate for energy) can sell his gas to the highest bidder.
That's why Spain was recently hit by news that its preferred LNG suppliers, Egypt and Algeria, had opted to sell spare gas to Japan where the price was about $US2 per million BTUs higher.
And it's why projects such as Woodside's Pluto development are deliberately not contracting all of their production - they want to keep some for the spot market.
The trade in LNG is expanding rapidly. A tanker loaded in Malaysia, Australia, or the Persian Gulf, can sail anywhere with the only restriction being contractual obligations.
As contracts expire, and new contracts are signed, the game will change dramatically with one result being the global re-pricing of gas to a common reference point in the same way that crude oil is benchmarked against Brent or West Texas Intermediate.
For producer countries, such as Australia, this is unbridled good news, with the only real issue being Slugcatcher's quiz question: is the US gas price too low, or is the world price too high?
The reason this question is critical is that as global LNG trade accelerates a global gas price will emerge, just as a global oil price will emerge.
If economics behaves in the future as it has in the past, that would mean the US price would prevail, and the gas price would contract back to around the $US10/MMbtu mark which prevails, rather than rise to the $US14/MMbtu price being paid in Japan and Korea.
But, unless The Slug is wide of the mark, economics in the future will not behave as it has in the past because the US is no longer the price setter for oil (or gas).
The world is the energy price setter, and that even applies to gas as it becomes more freely traded, and liberated from its status as a pipeline captive.
In the US there is a growing realisation that it is going to be forced to pay more for gas - if it wants supplies - which it does.
Because the US gas price is currently far below the world price, LNG tankers are bypassing terminals on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. They're sailing to Asia and Europe.
That won't last. The world's biggest economies in the US and China will be forced to pay a lot more for LNG in the future, or they simply will not get the supplies they want.
