While liquefied natural gas sellers across the world are giddy over the high prices paid in Asia, the region’s buyers are brainstorming ways to lower the cost of the expensive, but necessary, fuel.

One idea drawing interest calls for setting up a regional trading hub that could weaken LNG’s historic link to oil prices by giving sellers and buyers a marketplace where supply and demand determine price.

Important questions have yet to be answered: Where would a hub be located? Will governments in Asia allow the gas market to function unfettered? Would a critical mass of sellers and buyers participate? And how long before meaningful change occurs?

Billions of dollars are being committed to what could be the liquefied natural gas industry’s next big trend: Floating LNG projects, or FLNG.

Three projects are under way now, and the whole LNG world is watching to see how they work out. First production could come in 2014 or 2015.

Can producing LNG aboard giant floating factories really cut costs and development time? Can the production vessels really withstand the worst fury an ocean can churn up? Can they really bring to market gas from hundreds of remote offshore fields that would be too expensive to develop otherwise?

Major oil and gas producers, multinational engineering firms and the world’s biggest shipyards all are trying to position themselves for breakout growth of FLNG.