A shifting center of gravity from the developed to the developing world will redefine the energy landscape over the next two decades.

That's the theme that emerged from the first panel discussion of this year's IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates' IHS CERAWeek conference in downtown Houston. The discussion kicked off five days of panels and lectures featuring top energy executives, policy makers and analysts.

Growing economies in Asia, particularly China, and the Middle East, will shape the supply and demand dynamic of everything from oil and gas demand to electricity to the development of renewable energy sources.

“What will fill the demand?” asked Xizhou Zhou, a China expert with IHS CERA.

“The answer to that question is, really, everything.”

Despite the evolution of new markets, a two-speed transition is under way, one that will continue to squeeze oil refiners, said James Burkhard, managing director and global oil analyst with IHS CERA.

He said demand peaked five years ago in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 30 nations including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

The group is responsible for 55 percent of world oil demand. China represents 10 percent, Burkhard said.

“The fact that we don't expect oil demand in the OECD countries to exceed the peak in 2005 is a very substantial development,” Burkhard said.

Refiners will be forced to trim capacity utilization amid a flat or declining trend in some of the biggest refined products markets, even as new opportunities evolve in developing economies.

Breaking a 20-year trend, Burkhard said, a further market shift has oil production capacity swinging away from a period of diversification among nations to one in which capacity is potentially concentrated in 15 countries, called the Oil or O-15, most in Africa and the Middle East. The list does not include the U.S.

The outlook for natural gas development, by contrast, points toward more localization and regionalization as nations around the world begin exploiting the abundant natural gas reserves from unconventional sources, such as shale.

The outlook for natural gas development, by contrast, points toward more localization and regionalization as nations around the world begin exploiting the abundant natural gas reserves from unconventional sources, such as shale.

“Globally, our estimates put recoverable shale gas at between 5 and 16 quadrillion cubic feet. That's over 150 years of supply at today's current global consumption levels,” said Rafael McDonald, an IHS CERA expert in the liquefied natural gas area.

Shale deposits occur in almost every corner of the world. If the success achieved in the U.S., which has increased natural gas production from shale from 14 percent in 1990 to 50 percent last year, can be replicated globally “we would more likely see a refragmentation,” McDonald said.

The biggest story, however, is the anticipated growth in China and the demands that growth will place on the world's current energy capacity.

“Asian governments are increasingly aware of the fact that indigenous resources within the region right now are not sufficient to meet the very robust growth trends we see going forward,” Zhou said.

While China's population growth is expected to slow over the next two decades as its one-child only policy curbs new births, the country's gross domestic product will grow at a quick clip.

China's share of world GDP is expected to rise from 8.4 percent to 26.8 percent in around 2025, surpassing the United States' share — now at 24.5 percent and expected to fall to 16.2 percent, said Nariman Behravesh, IHS chief economist.

“Asia is still and will be for the next 20 years or so the star region. They are the region that is going to grow very, very rapidly compared with other regions, and even faster than other emerging regions,” Behravesh said.

monica.hatcher@chron.com