Recently, many large natural gas discoveries have been in remote regions that simply don't have much use for the fossil fuel they could produce. As a result, energy companies need to spend billions not only to develop these discoveries, but also to prepare the gas to be transported to regions that do need fuel.

The slideshow below takes a look at the 10 largest single project capital expenditures in natural gas. Nearly all of the projects involve developing not only the natural gas resources themselves, but also the pipeline infrastructure and the liquefaction equipment needed so that the gas can be exported to world markets. Because of the cost, nearly all of these projects are being developed either by big oil giants Chevron (CVX -0.96%), ExxonMobil (XOM -0.09%), ConocoPhillips (COP -1.25%), and Shell (RDS.A) (RDS.B), or by national energy companies.