I'm hardly an expert, from from what I've been reading here and elsewhere, the US NatGas industry has been drilling like crazy just to keep production levels stable. That doesn't sound like a scenario that has much room for growth in supply levels to me.
Now there may be huge reservoirs of the stuff hiding off the coasts of Florida, California, etc, or in ANWR. It won't help us in the short run even if it is there due to time-to-market issues and whatnot.
We've dodged the bullets that Kunstler et. al. have predicted due to a relatively mild winter over large parts of the US. Here in Minnesota, except for one cold snap in early December, it's been above-average temps for most of the winter heating season so far. My Natural Gas bill is going up, but not by a totally unreasonable amount. It seems to be in-line with the increases I saw last year and the year before, excepting, of course, that this year I'm setting the thermostat to a daytime high of 67 instead of 70, much to the wife's disgust.
If the weather gets cold for any length of time, all bets are off. Long-term forecasts here show us in good shap until at least the 3rd week of January. February is usually the coldest month of the year, though.
