Author Topic: With Expanding Exports, The Natural Gas Revolution Marches Forward  (Read 756 times)

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Offline thackney

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With Expanding Exports, The Natural Gas Revolution Marches Forward
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2017/08/17/with-expanding-exports-the-natural-gas-revolution-marches-forward/#2600010c7010
AUG 17, 2017

The natural gas revolution is marching on. Beside overtaking coal as the leading the fuel to create electricity, it is also the key raw material needed for American industry, whose appetite for natural gas and unconventional shale gas is expected to surpass the demands of the utility sector.

It’s a powerful economic story — but one that juxtaposes the goals of natural gas producers with those of the manufacturing and utility interests. The United States, which has been the globe’s leading producer of natural gas and shale gas since 2009, is now also a net exporter of it — largely because of the doubling of pipeline capacity to Mexico and reduced imports from Canada.

Demand, no doubt, is on the rise: utilities are shifting from coal to natural gas and manufacturers are expanding their domestic operations. Meanwhile, European and Chinese manufacturers are seeking cheaper supplies, all of which is creating price pressures. Just how will that affect the industrial and power sectors here at home?

“Based on construction plans, EIA expects that by 2020 the United States will have the third-largest LNG export capacity in the world after Australia and Qatar,” the U.S. Energy Information Administration just reported.

LNG refers to liquefied natural gas, which must first be super-cooled before it would be sent via tankers to ports around the world, notably to Asia and in Europe. To that end, China is expected to become the leading importer of LNG, consuming about 40% of it, says the International Energy Agency in Paris. And the U.S. Commerce Department agreed with China in May to let it contract for U.S.-supplied LNG; U.S.-based Chenier Energy Inc. is setting up an office there.

To meet that demand, the energy agency notes that five liquefaction facilities are under construction here: Cove Point, Cameron, Elba Island, Freeport, and Corpus Christi, all of which will come online in the next three years and increase total U.S. liquefaction capacity from 1.4 billion cubic feet per day now to 9.5 billion cubic feet by the end of 2019.

Hydraulic fracturing, which allows access to shale gas deposits locked deep underground and in rocks, is the catalyst for this economic rebirth. In 2000, shale gas accounted for 5 percent of all gas production in the United States and today, it is about 60 percent, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration....
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Offline IsailedawayfromFR

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Re: With Expanding Exports, The Natural Gas Revolution Marches Forward
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2017, 02:27:22 pm »
We are going from good to very good to excellent at a fast speed.

One of the good points that is rarely made is that, with the advent of unconventional gas, areas of the country that rarely benefited from O&G mineral extraction are seeing it blossom.  The Marcellus and Utica in PA and Ohio are the largest gas provinces in the country.

This used to be reserved for places like Texas, Alaska and Louisiana.  Now if only NY taxpayers and landowners could enjoy the bounty kept offlimits by the ultra-libs in Albany and NYC.
No punishment, in my opinion, is too great, for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin~  George Washington