The Next North Dakota Boom -- Capitalism -- The Bakken And NGLs -- August 2, 2014
Background:
The Bismarck Tribune is reporting:
Currently [the price of US natural gas] is hovering at about $4.50. Extracting the layers, or molecules, can become complex and
specific quite quickly, but the overall concept is something the average
person can grasp.
"You don't need to review your chemistry to
understand it, but, the way to think about it is in a cubic-foot of
natural gas produced in the Williston Basin you will find somewhere
around 8-12 gallons of raw natural gas liquids," John Gibson, former
CEO, ONEOK and non-executive chairman of the Board, ONEOK Partners said.
"That's ethane, propane, butanes all mixed up. If you go down into
Oklahoma or the Texas in the pan handle, that same cubic foot will have
say, three gallons per MCF. As you can tell by the numbers there is a
whole lot of natural gas liquids in the Williston Basin."
Reports
from the Energy Information Agency reinforce Gibson's testimony that
Bakken offers some of the richest NGLs in the country. Breaking down the
NGL market even further, each well drilled contains a great deal of
ethane, propane, butane and natural gasoline, which can be stripped out,
fractionated and put into the gas pipeline network. This process is not
necessarily new in oil and gas, but is relatively new to North Dakota.
"With
respects to the Marcellus and other shale plays that are offshore, the
NGL technologies are proven but the locations are new," Don Bari, Vice
President, Technology and Analytics Groups, IHS Chemical, said. "All the
infrastructure is already set up in the Gulf so that has had an early
influence."
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