Bahrain’s gas plans remain in flux

Completion of an import terminal has not ended the kingdom's gas dilemmas

A commercial start-up date for Bahrain’s new LNG facility remains unfixed despite it achieving a technical commissioning milestone, as lengthy discussions with potential LNG suppliers rumble on. Meanwhile, the cash-strapped kingdom—ill-placed financially to become dependent on costly foreign energy—is stepping up decades-long efforts to find and develop indigenous gas resources, with hopes buoyed by a discovery deep below the country's sole oilfield a few years back.  Bahrain’s LNG import journey began more than a decade ago, when an increasingly acute domestic gas shortage prompted the government to look overseas to plug the gap. But years of debate over the capacity and form of the import