Bentek Sees U.S. Gas-Productivity Gain Displacing Imports, Coal

(Bloomberg) — Surging productivity from U.S. fields will end the need for natural-gas imports and provide enough additional fuel to run vehicle fleets and reduce coal-fired power generation, said consulting firm Bentek Energy LLC.

Bentek, which tracks gas flows across the nation, predicted in 2008 that output gains could push Canadian imports and liquefied-gas cargoes sent by tanker ships out of the U.S. market by 2020. That was before advances in technology that proved last year to invalidate old formulas for predicting gas output based on the number of active drilling rigs, he said.