Psychology of terminology

March 5, 2007
Working for an American magazine has really driven home for me the differences in American and British English.

Working for an American magazine has really driven home for me the differences in American and British English. It’s the small things like “s” in British English being replaced by “z”-realized, not realised, for example.

Before joining OGJ I would write “The LNG terminal will be operational from 2010,” but in American English it’s rephrased as “The LNG terminal will be operational by 2010” to eliminate any confusion about whether the terminal would start in the given year or after. But to us Brits, it’s clear that operations would begin in the year stated.

Language differences

Differences in American and British approaches were highlighted again last week when I attended Excelerate Energy’s inauguration ceremony in the UK to celebrate the commissioning of its new GasPort, which is innovative technology that regasifies LNG onboard Excelerate’s specially adapted LNG ship and transfers the gas directly into the national grid. The audience was amused to veer between different pronunciations of the term “offshore buoy” by managers of the project. In Britain, we say “boy”; Americans say “booyee.” Tomaytoes, tomahtoes.

In discussing grammar, “full stops” (British English) have become “periods” (American English), and “dots” (British English)-when describing email addresses-are known as “points” when speaking to representatives from energy companies in continental Europe. And of course I’ve fallen into that mistake of understanding “gas” in articles to mean “natural gas,” but some Americans mean “gasoline,” which would otherwise be referred to as “petrol” in the UK. No statement, it appears, can be taken for granted.

Unit confusion

The above examples relate to everyday language where it should be possible to get along without confusion. Not so for the energy industry: There are no consistent units for communicating, which seems even more ironic considering the international importance of the industry. The usage of multiple units has surely baffled the majority of us upon starting our careers (if not even now many years in).

In the US, gas units of cubic feet and British thermal units are consistently used; hop over the Atlantic, and in continental Europe it changes to billion cubic meters and kilowatt-hours. Britain, however, adopts therms and kilowatt-hours. In Australia and Canada, they opt for the Joule (J). Russia prefers to price gas contracts according to cubic metres despite using kilowatt-hours in other instances. Translation is continuously needed!

Système International D’unités

Within the scientific world there is strong endorsement of the Système International D’unités (SI), which was adopted in 1960. SI presents a group of units to measure things like mass, volume, and energy and proposes a rational method to articulate them.

Expressing gas units, however, can be quite mystifying, say billion cubic meters per year as “Bcm/year.” It is hard to rationalise-that is, rationalize-this unit under the SI, where “cm” refers to centimetres-woops, centimeters-and “cubic metres (or meters)” are written as “m3.” In commercial gas circles, “cm” means cubic meters, so perhaps “m3,” using the SI system, would be more appropriate? The letter “B,” which represents “billion” in much of the gas world, would be expressed as “109” under SI and be written as Giga (G). Consequently “Bcm/year” would be “Gm3/year.”

Some opponents may argue that this expression is neither clear nor helpful as “Gm3” could be interpreted to mean a Gigameter cubed, or a billion cubic meters. For those who are more pedantic, what about the “year?” Can time be consistently measured?

The moral of the example is to stress the strong need to have a consistent set of units to converse in. International natural gas usage is set to boom over the next 20 years because countries will endeavour-that is, endeavor-to have sustainable energy supplies and escape high and volatile oil prices. Security of supply is the great buzzword of the industry, and LNG is forecast to boost interconnectivity of markets. According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report published Feb. 27, LNG trade is expected to double between 2005 and 2010, delivering around 40% of global gas supply growth.

With over 90% of current proven gas reserves lying outside the main industrial-country markets, LNG technology and infrastructure will be pivotal in monetising-monetizing, for American readers-stranded gas reserves and bringing them to market.

Natural gas will become more important in the energy mix, and so in doing international deals it would be great to operate without the translator-the calculator.