The stage appears set for natural gas to become more of a global energy commodity in 2008 and 2009 than in the past, largely because of an expanding LNG industry, Cambridge Energy Research Associates said at its annual conference in Houston.“The LNG armada has already set sail,” said Michael Stoppard, CERA senior director for global gas, during a Feb. 13 news conference. “In 2007, we saw the ability of the LNG market to respond to global events,” he said, referring to a July 16, 2007, earthquake that caused the shutdown of a Japanese power plant and the outage of a major North Sea gas pipeline serving the UK.Stoppard foresees LNG growth to continue to 2010 based on...