Posted on 04/17/2016 7:51:12 PM PDT by Elderberry
The story of the history of the United States is one of innovations and infrastructure working in tandem to forge new trade channels and routes. Some were abhorrent, like the triangle trade, which involved slaves and agricultural materials. The Erie Canal linked the farms of the Midwestern U.S. with the consumers of the Eastern Seaboard and Europe. The invention of electronics and personal computers created heavily traveled trade routes linking factories in Asia to ports on the West Coast of the United States. And now it’s fracking’s turn.
Fracking has fundamentally altered America’s economic trajectory by liberating vast resources of both oil and natural gas from the ground beneath our feet. And until very recently, these supplies were essentially stranded. The U.S. has a reasonably good system for moving crude oil around the U.S. — pipelines, and trains in a pinch. But laws prohibited the oil from being exported. (The ban was lifted last year.) Supplies of natural gas were even more constricted. To export oil, you simply pump crude onto one of the thousands of tankers that ply the seas, which can unload them with relative ease at thousands of points around the world. Moving natural gas around the globe is much more complicated. You need very expensive, highly specialized equipment to process it into a liquid form so that it can be shipped; highly specialized ships that can carry the cargo; and, finally, dedicated terminals that can unload and process the gas.
Until this year, the U.S. had no functioning capacity to export liquefied natural gas.
Which is too bad. Precisely because it doesn’t easily move around the world, the price of natural gas varies widely across the globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Times like this I wish had a few billion dollars.
I would make those ports, build those containers and blow the mothballs out of the several liquification plants that are sitting around.
Drill baby drill proved itself capable of altering the world economy.
We need to free up the Oil&Gas Industry
FERC denies Jordan Cove gas export project
A federal commission on Friday denied an Oregon pipeline and liquefied natural gas export project, in a blow that reverberates all the way to western Colorado’s
https://fromthestyx.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/obama-corrals-oil-and-gas-industry/
Piceance Basin and a victory for Oregon landowners and environmentalists.
In a 25-page order, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denied the proposed Jordan Cove LNG export terminal and the 232-mile Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline. Boosters of western Colorado’s natural gas industry had looked to the project as a new outlet for shipping Piceance Basin gas overseas, creating a new market at a time when local producers are struggling with low domestic natural gas prices.
We no longer engage in slavery on our shores, but we've recently gone that way offshore. Why is Chinese labor so cheap?
Back in the 90's when we were in the software business we hired a guy from China. He told us that they basically treat their factory laborers as slaves, pay them with a bowl of rice a day and work them until they drop dead. And there's never a shortage of workers willing to replace the dead ones. Of course, that was 20 years ago. May be different now. But the labor is still cheap. And I think it's cheaper yet in Vietnam.
Converting coal fired power plants to clean burning natural seems like such a great idea until the price of Natural Gas suddenly skyrockets as it has before.
It looks like it’ll be a while before the price of natural gas skyrockets.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/08/31/raymond-james-cuts-natural-gas-price-forecast/
HOUSTON — Raymond James lowered its long-term natural gas price estimates Monday, putting the investment banking firm in a growing group of analysts seeing a bleaker future for the fuel.
Raymond James said it had cut its forecast natural gas price through 2020 to $3.25 per million British thermal unit. The prediction is still a slight recovery: In early trading Monday, benchmark Henry Hub prices for natural gas were roughly $2.656 per million Btu.
The new price is far below the $3.75 price that Raymond James had previously forecast through the end of the decade and the $4.00-plus prices seen as recently as 2014.
Strong natural gas production and more efficient drilling led to the revision, Raymond James said in a note to clients Monday.
“Put simply, there is plenty of U.S. natural gas to meet rising demand at prices of $3.25 (or possibly lower) for the next five years,” the firm wrote.
“The story of the history of the United States is one of innovations and infrastructure working in tandem to forge new trade channels and routes. Some were abhorrent, like the triangle trade, which involved slaves and agricultural materials.”
America was founded in the late 16th century?
The trading system operated from the late 16th to early 19th centuries, carrying slaves, cash crops, and manufactured goods between West Africa, Caribbean or American colonies and the European colonial powers.
Another swipe at the US even if unintended. Which I doubt.
Lifting the ban was stupid.
American consumers will be gouged to lower the price of natural gas for Europe and the EU insider traders, undercutting Russian gas.
You get to make Soros and EU elites rich, and "punish" Russia at your expense, too.
Overseas labor is cheap which is why we use Vietnam and Bangladesh. Pay is better in China than the 90’s which is why they are also using Vietnam.
Countries that do nothing but export natural resources end up as poor third world nations in the long run. We should be using our own natural resources to build useful goods.
“We need to free up the Oil&Gas Industry.”
I agree.
The first time I saw Governor Palin on TV, she was touting the opportunities for freeing up Alaska’s natural resources.
Plus you get NoX released. The higher natural gas prices will also drive the price of electricity up. Some families will be looking at energy poverty.
It was a good thing because Europe is no longer enslaved by Russia. Plus Russia will find it harder to modernize its military. What’s bad about that?
The Euro market is always hungry for natural gas. Russia has a very prominent position in that market, and the Saudis want in.
I am attentive, but a relative neophyte. The more that I learn about energy policy, the more of what happens in the the world makes sense.
Those are good things, but temporary. When we run out, we’ll all be enslaved by Russia.
With current technology, we have enough gas for the next several hundred years. The Russkies would have to steal all our drills and keep us from making more.
I don’t have any sympathy for Colorado.
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