HOUSTON – Since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed the Gulf Coast nearly five months ago, the region has lost more than 610 billion cubic feet of natural gas production.

That’s about 3 percent of the nation’s annual production and enough to power homes in eight Southern states, including Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi for one year, according to the American Gas Association.

There is no single solution to offsetting supply disruptions, but economists, industry executives and analysts tout one means to ease future shortages against increasing demand.

They advocate placing aboveground storage tanks along the nation’s coasts where energy companies can store imported liquefied natural gas, also known as LNG.

Once stored in these receiving terminals, the natural gas would be shipped by pipelines throughout the United States.

“If we don’t have LNG in a big way, our marketable source of fuel is going to be, like, burning furniture, which is only joking partly,” said Bob Ineson Cambridge Energy Research Associates’ director for North American natural gas. “Without LNG, you are going to have gas shortages, sooner rather than later, and the price situation after hurricanes would grow to be far worse than it is.”

While natural gas futures have hovered around $8 or $9 per 1,000 cubic feet the last few weeks, it had peaked at $15.78 as recently as Dec. 13. And even as the winter has been unseasonably mild, heating bills are expected to increase on average $178, about 24 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s most recent short-term outlook.

The debate about building these receiving terminals is as volatile as the futures prices.

Proponents say the tanks are safe, a vital means to energy companies’ organic growth and a way to help ease a possible drag on the economy.

Critics, however, say these storage tanks – each the size of a baseball field – are potentially dangerous, especially in densely populated regions, and an easy terrorist target.

Moving liquefied natural gas is hardly new technology. The United States has been exporting it from Alaska to Asia since 1969.

But the urgency to expand the number of storage terminals domestically has grown, analysts said.

For now, there are four onshore LNG storage terminals, one each in Massachusetts, Maryland, Georgia and Louisiana that date to the mid-1980s, plus an offshore terminal in the Gulf of Mexico.

More than 40 projects have either been proposed, received federal permits or are under construction, though analysts say the market can probably support no more than 15.

Most of the proposed sites are along the energy-friendly Gulf Coast, fresh off two major hurricanes but also where infrastructure – pipelines, shipping channels and ports – are in place.

Proposals along the coasts, however, are being met with steadfast resistance from communities fearing the fallout from an accident or terrorist attack.

Two years ago, an explosion at an LNG plant in Algeria killed 30 people. The worst accident on record happened in 1944, at a Cleveland, Ohio, LNG plant that burned and killed 128 people.

These accidents drive an argument against plans such as Amerada Hess Corp.’s for a facility in Fall River, Mass., which sits immediately northeast of the Rhode Island state line.

Joe Caravalho, president of the Coalition for Responsible Siting of LNG Facilities in Fall River, said the project discourages economic development, presents environmental dangers to the waterfront and is not safe for 9,000 residents who live within one mile of the proposed project.

“No thoughtful person would put this kind of project in a residential area,” Caravalho said. “The only people who think this is a good idea are opportunistic. This isn’t about anything other than profit over people.”

Gordon Shearer, chief executive officer for Hess LNG, pointed to LNG’s safety record.

“If we couldn’t do it safely and securely, we wouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “No company could run a profitable business that is unsafe.”

These storage tanks are the final stop of the supply chain that begins with overseas production.

Gas is chilled to minus-260 degrees Fahrenheit, which reduces volume by about 600 times, comparable to shrinking a 17-inch beach ball to a pingpong ball.

It’s then shipped to the receiving terminals, returned to its natural state and distributed through pipelines.

Startup costs for the entire chain – the liquefaction plants, transportation and storage terminals – represents upfront costs upward of $15 billion, the kind of investment only a handful of companies can shoulder.

It’s also an investment in which companies expect long-term financial returns and the kind of growth investors seek.

“What we like about LNG is the fact that it’s a long project that essentially will produce substantial cash flow and income over the next 25 years,” said Sigmund L. Cornelius, ConocoPhillips Co.’s president of global gas.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips is collaborating with Freeport LNG-GP Inc. on a terminal in Quintana, Texas, about 90 miles south of Houston, likely to come on line sometime next year.

The facility also will be the newest in the U.S. and be able to move 1.5 billion cubic feet a day, but the company has expansion plans for the 200-acre site that could more than double its capacity.

LNG terminals import about 3 percent of the nation’s natural gas. The U.S. also imports another 12 percent of its natural gas, but not LNG, from Canada. It produces the remaining 85 percent.

Industry analysts and executives estimate that percentage of LNG imports could reach 15 percent of U.S. natural gas by 2012.

For now, most LNG imports come from Trinidad and Tobago – the U.S.’ largest supplier – and Western Africa, but Russian and Australian imports are growing.

Economists and company executives say increasing reliance on foreign countries for natural gas may not be as dicey as the dependency on other nations for oil.

A gas cartel like the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries isn’t likely, said James L. Smith, Southern Methodist University’s Cary M. Maguire Chair in Oil & Gas Management.

“There’s just a myriad of countries and regions contributing – Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria, Indonesia, Australia – for that to happen,” he said.

Additionally, energy companies have their eye on more North American production and pipeline development in Alaska’s North Slope and the MacKenzie River delta along Canada’s Northwest Territories.

“LNG is not going to meet all of our needs,” said Alan W. Stuckert, Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Houston-based public affairs manager-gas and power.

“We need access to the Rockies, the Arctic, Alaska and the federal lands that are not accessible now like the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.”

Exxon, however, still has grand plans for LNG. In November, it announced a $14 billion joint venture with Qatar Petroleum to produce LNG. Separately, it also has received permits for two storage facilities, one each in Port Arthur and Corpus Christi, Texas. Only one will be selected and soon be announced, company officials said.

Be it LNG imports or increased domestic production of inaccessible areas, boosting supplies is a must or rising natural gas prices could be a drag on the economy, said Stephen Brown, director of energy research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Further, he said, future natural gas crunches could force some industries to either reduce operations or relocate outside the U.S.

“At $9 for natural gas,” he said, “there is great incentive to increase LNG supplies and build a pipeline from Alaska.”