Greater Natural Gas Production is Boost to U.S. at Home and Abroad

SEATTLE (Oil Monster): When it comes to the U.S. energy economy, it’s a fracking world and we’re just living in it. And increasingly, fracking is supporting not just epic quantities of crude oil but also natural gas, according to a new report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Natural gas production has more than tripled in the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken oil plays over the past decade, and the balance of oil and natural gas has shifted more toward natural gas.

“As more crude oil is being produced from these wells, more natural gas will come to the surface over time,” said Trinity Manning-Pickett, an economist with the Energy Information Administration.

It’s been an exciting decade in the industry. 

“The advent of shale obviously changed the game, and so we’ve seen much lower prices since then,” said Leticia Gonzales with Natural Gas Intelligence.

And, the U.S. started shipping liquefied natural gas to Europe and increasingly Asia.  

“That has been the biggest driver of demand here over the last several years. It’s expected to continue rising over the next decade at least,” she said. 

The U.S. has actually become a net exporter of natural gas and the cheap, abundant fuel source has been good for consumers here at home, said Timothy Fitzgerald, an economist at the University of Tennessee. 

“It provides a lot of choice and flexibility and helps lower consumer energy bills, both for gas bills and for power bills,” he said.

Natural gas has also helped the U.S. phase out a dirtier source of electricity — coal — but these are still hydrocarbons we’re talking about.

“We’re not really doing anything different in terms of natural gas and making it lower carbon,” said Carey King, assistant director the University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute.

He said even though natural gas is cheap, decarbonizing the natural gas supply chain would cut into company profits — and there’s much work left to do if we want the industry to be cleaner.

Courtesy: www.marketplace.org