Posted on 12/10/2013 8:47:13 AM PST by shove_it
What is the U.S. going to do with natural gas? Whether we intentionally frack for it or it comes as a byproduct of fracking for oil, what do we do? We have a 50% reduction in rig count over the last two years and yet a steadily increasing supply of natural gas...
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
Surprisingly, SwwkingAlpha also works, if you click it, as a link to the SeekingAlpha article.
There are some proprietary processes out there that theoretically can take natural gas to a synthetic diesel. SASOL apparently has a plant being built in Sulfur, LA that supposedly will do this. IF so, there will be a market for that gas.
More than theory.
Shell oil has two working facilities and is planning another in the US.
Pearl GTL - an overview
http://www.shell.com/global/aboutshell/major-projects-2/pearl/overview.html
Steady increasing looks pretty flat to me.
U.S. Dry Natural Gas Production
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9070us2m.htm
To me they are giving an incomplete picture. The ratio of associated gas is far higher in the chase for condensate (natural gas liquids). In places in the Eagle Ford rigs get counted in the oil count as they go after liquid production but have a far higher associated gas production in comparison to traditional oil.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/shell-kinder-morgan-to-export-natural-gas-from-u-s-.html
By Mike Lee Jan 28, 2013 11:53 AM CT
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) announced their intention to form a company to export liquefied natural gas from a site in Georgia, the latest of more than 20 export terminals seeking to ship U.S gas overseas.
Gas is our ace-in-the-hole card. Unbelievable quantity(quadrillions instead of trillions of cubic feet) and environmentally great.
Oil is now and will always be the valuable commodity as it is just too good at transportation fuel and lubricants. Its biggest problem is its finite quantity.
Make no mistake: the resurgance of oil production in this country has occurred predominately in only two specific areas of North Dakota and South Texas, and that in only a single unique geologic interval in each area.
Geology dictates the ability of a liquid to flow through what can only be described as very poor quality rock. There must be unique circumstances which allow it. In North Dakota it is a high quality crude contained within an unusual overpressured rock that caused it to crack and create natural fractures that allow flow. In the case of South Texas, it is a relatively thin band that contains liquids but with a high enough gas saturation as to allow continued, high productivity flow to occur.
Both of these examples are having a difficult time to be replicated with any regularity in other geologic horizons in other basins.
Gas is much easier to flow through poorer quality rock and will be the big champion rather than oil over the longer term.
Unlike what the article says, I think due to difficulty finding more large unconventional oil plays, oil will increase in price due to scarcity and gas will move up to replace it in boiler and transportation fuel.
The ridiculous idiocy we currently have of turning our food into fuel via ethanol will go away due to economics and the exposure of the scam cronyists who get the govt to use our tax dollars for failed greenie enterprises and will collapse.
Gas will be left to fill in the gaps we will have for energy.
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