If there is one conclusion that should be drawn from the boom in U.S. natural gas production, it is that supplies are so abundant that it makes economic sense to export some of our gas to countries overseas.Link here at CarpeDiem.com for much more, including graphs.
No one could have imagined that possibility even a few years ago when the United States was actually importing natural gas, with much of it arriving on LNG tanker ships.
Today America is completely self-sufficient in natural gas. In fact, we produce more gas than we can use, and soon we will not have enough room to store the surplus gas. Even now, some of the gas produced as a byproduct of oil drilling must be burned off or “flared” as a waste product until customers can be found to buy it.
I've blogged about that before: soon the US won't have enough storage capacity for all the natural gas it is producing. Even as natural gas companies say they are cutting production, oil companies are producing more and more natural gas as a by-product of their drilling.
There are several solutions, one I haven't seen mentioned yet: more LNG tankers storing natural gas off-shore.
Folks say the bottom may have been reached with regard to price for natural gas, but if the US runs out of storage space it's hard to see how natural gas has hit bottom, especially when a lot of production is coming as a by-product.
