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Page added on June 6, 2014
US gas production setting records
U.S. natural gas production from the Lower 48 states in May beat a monthly high set in April by 0.6 percent, analysis shows.
Bentek Energy, the forecasting division of energy website Platts, said May production reached 67.7 billion cubic feet per day on average. That beat the previous monthly record set in April.
Production peaked May 26 at 68.2 billion cubic feet per day and May’s average was 4.6 percent higher year-on-year.
“With power utilities clearly anxious about relying on coal as a fuel source now that the Environmental Protection Agency has released its latest carbon emissions reduction program, natural gas producers have stepped up and see a clear signal to deliver as much as the market can bear,” Jack Weixel, Bentek Energy director of energy analysis, said in a statement Tuesday.
The EPA proposed Monday to cut emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent from a 2005 benchmark by 2030.
The Bentek data show production for the year should average 67.5 billion cubic feet per day because of growth from shale basins in the country.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Energy Department, publishes May production data near the end of July.
13 Comments on "US gas production setting records"
rockman on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 7:49 am
“…natural gas producers have stepped up and see a clear signal to deliver as much as the market can bear”. Being one of those gas producers I’ll take the liberty to respond for all of us: we don’t give a crap about what the market will bear since the US still doesn’t produce all the NG we consume. For us the dynamic hasn’t changed: it will always be about the price we get for our gas. Which is why there’s a push by the industry to export LNG: it’s not because we don’t have a market for it but because it can get a higher price.
Kenz300 on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 8:30 am
Climate Change will impact each of us.
The sooner we transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources the better.
How Fossil Fuel Interests Attack Renewable Energy
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/05/how-fossil-fuel-interests-attack-renewable-energy
penury on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 10:29 am
Kenz I agree that a transition to a cleaner cheaper alternative fuel would be wonderful. Which fuel do you propose we transition to? I might be too immersed in the current culture to see a solution, but transitioning might take at least 20 years, cost 7 or 8 trillion dollars. GM this year is on track to build 16 million vehicles any idea how many will be alternative fuels? Now I suppose that by transiting to a new cheaper fuel might mean solar. Please supply some information as to how much this would cost in time and dollars to build the infra structure and then replace the current vehicles. Please I really want to join in your dream of sustainable energy within my Grand kids life times.
rockman on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 10:40 am
P – As I suspect you already understand if there were a cheaper alt today it would be capturing much of the market already. Maybe someday but the best I suspect we will see is more expensive (at least initially) and more secure energy source. But consider the Texas model: lots of wind power but we still burn much more coal then any other state. Wind isn’t a substitute here…it’s a supplement.
Mike2 on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 10:54 am
Yes, Rock, but you can produce more NG at this higher Price, isn’t it?
If you can get for example European gas Prices what will this do to your Business?(minus the transportation costs)
Plantagenet on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 11:08 am
Look for increasing adoption of NG as a transportation fuel in the USA. Truck and bus fleets are already changing to NG—more and more private vehicles will also be powered by NG.
Juan Pueblo on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 11:22 am
As oil production peaks, all other forms of energy are becoming more important. I hope we all agree here that an increase in global gas and coal consumption, and all other energy sources was a given after Peak Oil. What I wonder is how long this will last and how much of a difference it will make.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 12:11 pm
Plantagenet said: Look for increasing adoption of NG as a transportation fuel in the USA.
Plant, we have to import NG just to meet our current demand for heating homes and running electrical generation plants, along with other assorted uses.
Are you suggesting that we will let everybody freeze in the winter, or go without NG-generated electricity so that we can convert more NG to running vehicles?
Or, are you suggesting that we will simply somehow magically start producing excessive volumes of “excess” NG to power the ever-increasing number of NG-powered vehicles you envision?
Or, perhaps you haven’t really thought about it all that much but just blindly believe that we are somehow magically going to convert transportation to NG.
Which is it?
westexas on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 12:14 pm
A few weeks ago, I pointed out, to an EIA analyst, the discrepancy between two different EIA data bases for US dry natural gas production, especially for 2012. He said he would look into it, and he replied that it was surprisingly difficult to get the numbers to match.
I suspect, but don’t know, that two different divisions of the EIA are using different data sources (possibly Cediagaz for the international data base and Bentek for the domestic data base).
My initial impression was that the International data base used a preliminary number, subsequently reduced, but my analyst friend cautioned me agains this conclusion (he was not totally forthcoming about what was actually going on).
I suspect that what this exercise shows is that we probably have, even for US gas production, something like a 2% to 4% margin of error, which makes one wonder about international oil production data. For a reported Global C+C production rate of 76 mbpd, I suspect that the actual number may be somewhere in a range between 74 and 78 mbpd.
Two EIA sources for US dry natural gas production:
International Energy Statistics:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=3&pid=26&aid=1
2010: 21.3 TCF
2011: 22.9
2012: 25.3
Note on data source: The estimates in the table include data from Cedigaz.
Natural Gas Gross Withdrawals and Production:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_dcu_NUS_a.htm
2010: 22.9 TCF
2011: 24.1
2012: 24.3
So, dry US natural gas production either rose by 4 TCF from 2010 to 2012, or it rose by only 1.4 TCF from 2010 to 2012. The 2.6 TCF spread would be equivalent to twice the UK’s 2012 reported dry natural gas production.
westexas on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 1:15 pm
Speaking of data quality issues, I made a mistake. The International data set is only through 2012, while the domestic data set is through 2013 (I was comparing international 2012 to domestic 2013), so the only real discrepancy is for 2012.
International Energy Statistics:
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/IEDIndex3.cfm?tid=3&pid=26&aid=1
2012: 25.3 TCF
Natural Gas Gross Withdrawals and Production:
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/ng_prod_sum_dcu_NUS_a.htm
2012: 24.1 TCF
GregT on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 6:05 pm
Juan,
“What I wonder is how long this will last and how much of a difference it will make.”
I guess it all depends on how much of a difference it will make to what.
If you are talking about modern industrial society, it might add a decade or two. If you are talking about the environment, it could very well be the difference between billions dying, and global mass extinction.
rockman on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 7:27 pm
Mike – “If you can get for example European gas Prices what will this do to your Business?” I’m trying to not come across as the gray haired old fart with 4 decades of experience exploring for NG in the Gulf Coast. But that is what I is. LOL. My little company spent $200+ million the first 3 years drilling for NG. My one sole complaint from my owner: we were drilling enough wells. And then NG prices fell and since then we’ve spent exactly $0 drilling for NG.
So yeah: if prices go up we would start drilling for NG again. But we would still be faced with not enough places to poke a hole. And if NG prices got really high? A lot more wells would be drilled. But we would be drilling riskier prospects (which means a higher rate of dry holes) and lower risk prospects with much smaller reserve potential. So yes…a lot more drilling for NG. But a lot of capex spent on dry holes and a lot less NG reserves produced for the monies spent.
There are some exceptions, like the Deep Water GOM, but as a rule higher prices typically don’t equate to big new reserves and a high success rate. Pull up the US oil production stats from the late 70’s and be prepared to NOT BE IMPRESSED by the results of 4500+ rigs drilling (about 3X as many as today). Adjusted for inflation oil prices reached about the same level then as they are today. And there were a lot more onshore conventional reservoirs to be discovered over 30 years ago then there are today.
I’m sitting on a rig in S Texas as I type. Drilling for residual oil in a field that’s part of a trend that has produced 4.5 BILLION bbls of oil. The bigger fields did 150+ MILLION bbls of oil each. It wouldn’t matter if oil went to $500/bbl I couldn’t find a 100 million bbls discovery in the trend. In fact it’s unlikely I could even make a 100,000 bbl discovery: there’s not enough room to put a field that size beteen the depleted wells and dry holes.
High oil/NG prices don’t tend to create big fields where they don’t exist. They just convince you to drill more dry holes and for smaller reserves. Just like Mother Earth designed the distribution of hydrocarbon reservoirs. LOL.
Northwest Resident on Fri, 6th Jun 2014 8:44 pm
God dammit rockman. You’re always dredging that reality and science stuff up to shove in our faces. (keep it coming partner)