US Natural Gas -- September 13, 2019

The new reports are staggering -- the amount of US natural gas reserves.

Zeroes (groups of three)

• million: 6 (2)
• billion: 9 (3)
• trillion: 12 (4)
• quadrillion: 15 (5)
• quintillion: 18  (6)

Let's start with this from a reader:

New assessment just released. This assessment is released every two years.

http://potentialgas.org/press-release

Record resource of 3.4 quadrillion cubic feet of potential gas.

That's about 120 years at current use consumption. If you add in the proved reserves (not included in above), it's about 3.8 thousand trillion cubic feet, or 140 years of runway.

It was the biggest ever jump since 2016. Mostly driven by shale in the Appalachian region.

Of course the peak oilers are unhappy. But then shale gas has figuratively held them down on the schoolyard playground and drooled on them.

By the way, I know you love you some tight oil and the Bakken. But the shale gas story is just, as the kids would say, "sick". Massive resource AND low prices. No OPEC cuts needed here. Shale gas just crushed that market. Here (and more and more) overseas as well. Net exports (not just exports, but NET exports).

And the NGL byproducts...propane is just this massive under-reported story. US went from being an importer to now exporting more than any other country (on top of supplying its own increased consumption).

*Quadrillion cubic feet. You know the TCF as trillion cubic feet. A QCF is a thousand TCF. I'm starting a movement to popularize this unit. "We're gonna need a bigger unit" to handle this shale phenomenon.

The average American on the street has no idea.

Two additional points:

• this is only natural gas -- it does not include natural gas coming out of Canada; for Canada add in another 1.2 quadrillion cubic feet
• propane: look how things have changed in the just the few years that I have been blogging; early on I even had a tag, "propane_shortage_2013_2014" due to the propane shortage in the US ... wow, what a change!

Energy in the US? Democrats want to nationalize the oil and gas sector.

• Bernie: resist!
• Buttigieg: change course!
• Beto: re-set!
• Biden: what just happened? We need to get back to "normal."

Where's the beef?

And this still remains my favorite photograph of the year:

Fried chicken: compliments of natural gas.