Wednesday, May 15, 2013

From SeekingAlpha: The Coming Price War Between Crude Oil And Natural Gas

Despite its title, a lot of great information about natural gas. If you haven't read it, highly recommend it.

Some interesting quips from the article:
And not all "unconventional extraction" projects are profitable, even at near-$100 a barrel crude prices. But many are, and some could be, even with under-$30 markets. Skills developed from experience will make many more of those.
Even so, there may still be some Middle East properties with under-$10 costs, so the Saudis and their neighbors are not facing ruin. But the glory days of international oil are winding down.
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Here in the US, the role of Natural Gas has been kept minimal because of its irregular availability. NG previously has been produced in association with crude oil. Where NG was a byproduct, "associated" gas that was of small value, hazardous, and had no regular market, was simply "flared.," or burned in the open air.
Encounters of big Natural Gas reservoirs caused "bubbles" of supply, relative to demand (and transportation capacity) that put a chill on NG price - but rarely so on oil or oil product prices.
The initial efforts to use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing were aimed at recovering NatGas, which as it turned out, was found in stupefying quantities, far more than could be handled. Since NG was the objective, much of that found has been shut in, awaiting the construction of take-away capacities that will transport it to market.
The costs of discovery are significant enough that few companies have the financial resources (internal or external) to do a lot of this. The question of the ultimate NG sale price is always a major limiting factor.
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But the biggest undeveloped market, already in the early stages of invasion, is in transportation. There CNG and LNG already can present upwards of 50% fuel savings for long-haul truckers and intense city-delivery ops like FedEx and UPS. As well as for non-electric municipal transit systems. It is here that refined oil - gasoline - faces its most serious challenge.
Expansion of that market depends on two things: 1) availability of NG fuels on a wide geographic basis, and 2) vehicles designed for or converted to the use of NG fuel.
Task 1 is being promoted by the company Clean Energy Fuels Corp. and obstructed by the Big Oil club, which knows exactly what its accomplishment is likely to do to profits.
Task 2 at the consumer level only has one NG-fuel-designed vehicle (by Honda  and now serious, developed engines designed by a subsidiary of Cummins for truck and large vehicle usage. Conversion kits to adapt existing internal combustion engines of passenger vehicles, in widespread use elsewhere in the world, are prohibited by law here in the US. (Guess why?)

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