NATURALGAS

What is it?Waste product produced by bacteria and enzymes that break down organic matter Mostly methane (CH4) with a small amount of other hydrocarbons Can be associated with both oil and coal; produced by breaking down both Also associated with swamps, rice fields, termites, and cattle

CharacteristicsGood -1) Burns cleanly, with very few pollutants 2) Easier to use in fuel cell (more efficient)3) Large supplies worldwide

Bad -1) Hard to transport and store2) Leaks result in greenhouse gas emissions

Types Dry natural gas - consists of only gaseous component; mostly methane, with butane and propane Natural gas liquids - the non-gaseous, organic components of natural gas; heavier hydrocarbons such as pentane Wet natural gas - natural gas that is mixed with non-organic substances such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen

ConsumptionMost natural gas in U.S. is used for industrial processes. Residential usage accounts for about 1/4 of the total.

The U.S. uses the most natural gas in the worldData from the Dept. of Energy, Use PercentResidential21.7Commercial14.0Industrial31.8Electricity Generation25.0Automobiles0.1Pipeline2.8Lease and plant4.6

U.S.Worldeia.doe.gov, 2004 data

Country

Usage (TCF)

U.S.

22.4

Russia

16.0

Germany

3.6

United Kingdom

3.5

Canada

3.4

ProductionProduced with wells, just like oil Unlike oil, natural gas does not cling to rock; rock permeability very important In stable rock environments, can increase flow by fracturing the rock with dynamite or water Can use pumps and injector wells to increase flow through rock

Natural gas - recoveryGas reserves usually associated with oil or coal deposits

ProcessingNatural gas normally requires very little processing before it can be moved to market put it directly into pipeline Subsea completion - some gas wells are fed into pipeline directly at the ocean floor; saves tremendous amount of money in deepwater environment

Occasionally, need to remove excess water and sulfur; can be done on nearby platform Before it is sold commercially, need to put in mercaptans

U.S. ProductionProduction peaked in 1973 Production bottomed out in the mid 1980s; price surge increased demand after thatWe currently produce almost 20 TCF of natural gas per year

To meet consumption needs, we import from Canada and Mexico Lack of infrastructure to Alaska means that we pump 3 TCF back into the ground each year

Gas ReservesData from Hubbert Center, http://www.oilcrisis.com/gas/This data is 8 years old. Current consumption is 26 TCF in North America and 90 TCF

gas

Natural Gas

HomeLNG terminal plans proliferate in Baja California, EcoAmericas [April 2002]

News

Depletion & U.S. Energy Policy

Schoolhouse

Overview"... [O]ur gas-related drilling boom ... was real and ... came to an end last August [2001] when gas prices collapsed. By the bottom of its collapse, gas drilling had fallen by 45%. Most gas analysts and many industry executives think that gas supplies wi

Summary

Editorials"Texas represents 31% of total U.S. daily gas supply. ... U.S. natural gas supplies could fall as much as 10% in as little as six months from now. The drop could be close to double this amount by the time it bottoms.

Experts

Bartlett"If this happens, it will jolt the U.S. economy far worse than the 1973 Oil Embargo. And unfortunately, there is no quick fix to this supply crisis. Americas electricity grid is highly dependent on an abundant supply of natural gas that must grow by 35%

Campbell

Deffeyes"If gas supplies drop by even 5%, there is a good chance that the industry will not be able to get supplies back to the flat levels we enjoyed for the past 8 years.

Duncan

Hubbert"I fear that 5 to 10 years from now, historians might look back and discover that natural gas in 2002 finally experienced the same fate as U.S. oil did 32 years earlier." [pdf pg 11]

Ivanhoe

LaherrreInternational Workshop on Oil Depletion, Uppsala, Sweden by Matthew R. Simmons, Simmons & Company International [May 23, 2002]

Youngquist

Debate

ScenariosMethane Madness: A Natural Gas Primer. "In 2000 the wellhead price of natural gas skyrocketed 400%. This was the sharpest energy price increase the nation had ever seen, outdoing even the oil spikes of the 1970s. The price hikes hit hard, hammering homeow

Nations &

Regions

Natural Gas

Alternatives

Environment

HistoryFirst, let's take a look at Demand

Politics

Transport

Books

Servicesand if there is a shortage, how do you handle supply?

References

Search

Contact

About

Merchant electrical generators are building or proposing gas-fired power plants that will only create ever greater dependency on a dwindling resource. There are presently more than 200 power plants scheduled to come on-line in the US, most of them are fue

In a story dated August 07, 2001, Associated Press business writer Brad Foss noted that "Last year there were 16,000 new gas wells drilled, up nearly 60 percent from 10,400 drilled in 1999. But output only rose about 2 percent over the same period, accord

In June 1999, Oil & Gas Journal described how the Texas gas industry, which produces one-third of the nation's gas, had to drill 6,400 new wells that year to keep production from plummeting. Just the previous year, only 4,000 wells had to be drilled to ke

More about Natural Gas

Canadian Gas, Our Ace in the Hole?. "In the United States the demand for natural gas is projected to rise substantially in the coming years, as it is the environmentally preferred fossil fuel and therefore the fossil fuel of choice for new electric power

North American Conventional Gas Supply Shortfall Seen "Conventional natural gas supplies will not be enough to meet the North American market's demand for gas over the next decade...." [April 26, 2002]

30 TCF By 2010? Can North America Meet Its Gas Requirement? [2 mb pdf requires login] The Energy Forum, New York, Matthew R. Simmons [April 3, 2001]

North American gas production flat, despite drilling boom -- El Paso Corp's CEO. [March 26, 2001]

The first LNG Terminal to be built in 20 years. "...[T]he North Carolina Council of State authorized the North Carolina Ports Authority to enter into an agreement with El Paso Merchant Energy Company of Houston, Texas to construct a liquefied natural gas

US Natural Gas Supply Update by Jean Laherrere [February 12, 2001]

Natural-Gas Producers Report a Continuing Decline in Output. "About 20 large natural-gas producers, accounting for close to 40% of domestic production, have so far reported fourth-quarter results. The result: Natural-gas production in the quarter was down

Gulf of Mexico: Reservoir temperatures, low thermal gradient limit US Gulf's deepwater gas potential. Recent discussions on the future of the US energy economy have been dominated by a single vision - the increase in non-transportation energy demand to be

Natural Gas in the US: How Far Can Technology Stretch the Resource Base? "We review the theoretical underpinnings of the exponential model, the amount of gas discovered per unit effort, a quantity called yield-per-effort (YPE), and estimate an econometric

Canadian Gas Supply: Going Up? Or Down? While Canada contains significant natural gas resources, gas supply over the near term will rely heavily on the exploitation of the conventional potential of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and the Sable

If the U.S. shuts the door on Canadian timber, Canadian officials say they could shut off the natural gas supply. [Sunday, March 18, 2001 by Michael Milstein, The Oregonian]

Natural Gas Statistics

A study of natural gas consumption and reserves was recently made by Dr. Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere. Their basic data are as follows:

North AmericaWorldWorld

Consumption 199618 Tcf80 Tcf14 Gboe

Produced to date1,230 Tcf2,200 Tcf400 Gboe

"Reserves"152 Tcf4,800 Tcf870 Gboe

Undiscovered168 Tcf2,250 Tcf410 Gboe

Remaining (Res + Undisc)320 Tcf7,050 Tcf1,280 Gboe

Ultimate1,550 Tcf9,250 Tcf1,680 Gboe

* 5.5 Mcf = 1 boe, or 5.5 Tcf = 1 Gboe

Tcf = Trillion cubic feet, Gboe = Billion barrels oil equivalent

See also a report of Working Gas in Storage [graph] (must log in to website to see report)

Substituting Natural Gas for Oil

If energy consumption were to continue at its present pace and natural gas were to replace oil completely in order to maintain the current level of oil consumption (23 Gb), and if the current consumption of natural gas were to continue unabated (14 Gboe),

1,280 Gboe/(23 Gb + 14 Gboe) = 35 years

If the combined consumption of oil and natural gas were to be reduced to the present level of oil consumption, then natural gas could continue for:

1,280 Gboe/(23 Gb) = 56 years

While reserves:production ratios are highly misleading, and these assumptions grossly oversimplify the likely real situation, this calculation gives one an appreciation for the limited time that humanity can postpone the inevitable by substituting natural

Discussion

Natural gas comes from plant life grown on terra firma, not from the marine algae which has given the world its oil. It is more widely found in nature than is oil, but being a smaller molecule is more mobile, which means it escapes easier from traps, whic

There is also the issue of how to equate gas with oil. By economic value, 10 Mcf = 1 b oil equivalent. By calories, about 5.5 Mcf = 1 boe.

The available statistics on natural gas are far worse even than for oil. Virtually all the natural gas used to date has been "conventional" gas, which was found in conjunction with oil. Much if not most of the new gas involves "non-conventional" gas, and

The two largest resources not yet in production are in the Sahara and Niger Delta. It can be supposed that gas pipelines will be built soon from the Middle East to Europe and the Indian subcontinent, so that production will rise in steps as the linkages a

Non-Conventional Gas

Non-conventional gas is important, although so far it has only been developed in North America.

Three out of four natural gas wells in the USA are drilled specifically for gas. USA reserves are supposed to be about 330 Tcf rising to 500 with better technology. Production could rise to about 5.5 Tcf/a by 2010. It comprises:

US Energy Information Agency

more on natural gas fact and fancy from the EIA

Political / Economic Issues

The high mobility of gas gives rise to so called "gas bubbles" when the market is flooded. The USA is consuming its endowment of conventional natural gas and Europe has privatized the gas business which will have the same consequence. Europe can import fr

Conclusions

Gas reserves are much more difficult to assess than oil, and much more susceptible to economic factors, the most important of which is transport (pipelines/LNG). The USA is more depleted than anywhere else.

Any proposal to use natural gas as the primary substitute for oil in the transportation sector represents at best a temporary solution, and at worst a distraction of human industrial resources (consuming time and capital, while oil and gas remain economic

1994-2000 EcoSystems contact info

e-mail

Home

News

Schoolhouse

Overview

Summary

Editorials

Experts

Bartlett

Campbell

Deffeyes

Duncan

Hubbert

Ivanhoe

Laherrre

Youngquist

Debate

Scenarios

Nations &

Regions

Natural Gas

Alternatives

Environment

History

Politics

Transport

Books

Services

References

Search

Contact

About

LNG terminal plans proliferate in Baja California, EcoAmericas [April 2002]

Depletion & U.S. Energy Policy

International Workshop on Oil Depletion, Uppsala, Sweden by Matthew R. Simmons, Simmons & Company International [May 23, 2002]

Methane Madness: A Natural Gas Primer. "In 2000 the wellhead price of natural gas skyrocketed 400%. This was the sharpest energy price increase the nation had ever seen, outdoing even the oil spikes of the 1970s. The price hikes hit hard, hammering homeow

Merchant electrical generators are building or proposing gas-fired power plants that will only create ever greater dependency on a dwindling resource. There are presently more than 200 power plants scheduled to come on-line in the US, most of them are fue

Canadian Gas, Our Ace in the Hole?. "In the United States the demand for natural gas is projected to rise substantially in the coming years, as it is the environmentally preferred fossil fuel and therefore the fossil fuel of choice for new electric power

North American Conventional Gas Supply Shortfall Seen "Conventional natural gas supplies will not be enough to meet the North American market's demand for gas over the next decade...." [April 26, 2002]

30 TCF By 2010? Can North America Meet Its Gas Requirement? [2 mb pdf requires login] The Energy Forum, New York, Matthew R. Simmons [April 3, 2001]

North American gas production flat, despite drilling boom -- El Paso Corp's CEO. [March 26, 2001]

US Natural Gas Supply Update by Jean Laherrere [February 12, 2001]

Natural-Gas Producers Report a Continuing Decline in Output. "About 20 large natural-gas producers, accounting for close to 40% of domestic production, have so far reported fourth-quarter results. The result: Natural-gas production in the quarter was down

Gulf of Mexico: Reservoir temperatures, low thermal gradient limit US Gulf's deepwater gas potential. Recent discussions on the future of the US energy economy have been dominated by a single vision - the increase in non-transportation energy demand to be

Canadian Gas Supply: Going Up? Or Down? While Canada contains significant natural gas resources, gas supply over the near term will rely heavily on the exploitation of the conventional potential of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) and the Sable

If the U.S. shuts the door on Canadian timber, Canadian officials say they could shut off the natural gas supply. [Sunday, March 18, 2001 by Michael Milstein, The Oregonian]

more on natural gas fact and fancy from the EIA

Gas reserves are much more difficult to assess than oil, and much more susceptible to economic factors, the most important of which is transport (pipelines/LNG). The USA is more depleted than anywhere else.

contact info

e-mail

Coal Bed MethaneThis is natural gas that is trapped within the coal seam; used to be the reason that coal miners took canaries with them into mine Potentially huge reserves of thisEasier to drill than other wells, as coal is closer to surface; cheaper Water that must be removed first is saline; disposal problem Estimated at 700 TCF in U.S.; 100 TCF developable now

Methane HydratesMethane locked in an ice lattice; found most often on ocean floor Very little known about these deposits - Unknown how they form - Unknown how stable they are - Unknown how to produce reserves - Unknown how much there is in the world

Potentially, more than twice the amount of carbon in methane hydrate deposits than all other fossil fuels combined

OutlookEven with our usage, we have been able to add to reserves recently; if have to rely on conventional sources, will run out in 15-20 years

If coal bed methane proves feasible, could add many years to this outlook

If methane hydrates prove producible and as plentiful as thought, natural gas could be fossil fuel of future Effect on global warming unknown