Natural Gas Proved Reserves -- Global -- August 22, 2022

Off Cyprus:

• link here.
• this was considered "breaking news" and breathlessly reported -- oh, give me a break.
• but, yes, it's huge -- see Groningen below 
• but so is the Permian 140 trillion cubic feet
  
• TTE, Eni: Cronos-1 well
• preliminary estimates indicate there are about 2.5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas in place, “with significant additional upside”
• that 2.5 trillion: put into perspective by numbers below
• Groningen, which the Dutch closed down? 2.8 trillion cubic feet
  

US proved reserves of natural gas by top eight states, 2016 - 2022:

Staggering global riches of natural gas (the numbers keep increasing). From an earlier post:

Top five countries:

• Russia: 6,000 trillion cubic feet
• Iran: 1,000 trillion cubic feet
• Qatar: 900 trillion cubic feet
• Turkmenistan: 600 trillion cubic feet
• US: 350 trillion cubic feet
• #11: Australia: 152 trillion cubic feet (as of January, 2014). (See this post.)
  

Now, let's go back and re-run the numbers that were posted earlier:

• that recent huge Mediterranean natural gas find: 30 trillion cubic feet; this was said to be biggest natural gas find ever in the Mediterranean
• Barnett, revised USGS figures: 53 trillion cubic feet
• Utica, newly revised figures: 782 trillion cubic feet
• Marcellus, EIA revised estimates: 65 trillion cubic feet, "proved" reserves
• Bakken/Three Forks, USGS estimate: 7 trillion cubic feet
• Qatar: 800 trillion cubic feet, wiki, conversion

Other recent stories on natural gas reserves

• Marcellus: 480 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas, Penn State geoscientist 

Comments regarding natural gas reserves

• for me, it's hard enough getting my hands around billions of bbls of oil; it's almost impossible for me to get a feel for trillions of cubic feet of natural gas
• proved reserves are based on price of recovery, confusing matters from year to year
• estimates are just that, estimates (and often inflated for "certain" reasons)
• watch for this gotcha: sometimes reported in trillion cubic feet; sometimes in trillion cubic meters (35 cubic feet = 1 cubic meter; not trivial)
• for me it comes down to two things:
• any discovery over 30 trillion cubic feet natural gas is staggering, worth reporting
• "we" aren't going to run out of natural gas any time soon

More On That Natural Gas Storage Record -- August17, 2020

Updates

August 18, 2020: See comments. I'm still curious what might explain the record increase in US natural gas storage -- broke through the five-year maximum. See graph below. Some suggest it may be due to decreased usage due to warmer temps in/along the mid-Atlantic states this past winter. That may be be an important contributor but the EIA graph would not have predicted that back in the winter of 2019 - 2020. A google search (US natural gas storage at all-time record) suggests the major reason for the US natural gas underground storage breaking through the five-year maximum was due to less LNG exports.

Good news: it appears exports are forecast to rise again, resulting in a jump in natural gas prices. 

Original Post

I find this incredible and for the most part, being reported nowhere in the mainstream media and I doubt most Americans are even aware of this. 

From  the most recent issue of Focus on Fracking (edited):

The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending August 7th indicated that the quantity of natural gas held in underground storage in the US

• rose by 58 billion cubic feet to 3,332 billion cubic feet by the end of the week:
• which left our gas supplies 608 billion cubic feet, or 22.3% greater than the storage same time one year ago; and,
• 15.3% above the five-year average for the same week.

The 58 billion cubic feet that were added to US natural gas storage this week:

• was more than the average 51 billion cubic feet increase that was forecast by analysts polled by S&P Global Platts;
• more than the 51 billion cubic feet addition of natural gas to storage during the corresponding week of 2019; and,
• it was well above the average of 44 billion cubic feet of natural gas that has been added to natural gas storage during the same week over the past 5 years.

From the EIA (a dynamic link):

Working gas in storage was 3,332 Bcf as of Friday, August 7, 2020, according to EIA estimates. This represents a net increase of 58 Bcf from the previous week. Stocks were 608 Bcf higher than last year at this time and 443 Bcf above the five-year average of 2,889 Bcf. At 3,332 Bcf, total working gas is above the five-year historical range.

Natural Gas Pipeline Constraints -- Update -- January 11, 2020

I don't follow natural gas closely enough to understand all this, but this article over at Platts seems to be fairly straightforward.

The link.

These are the summary data points:

• southbound corridors from Carthage, Perryville becoming constrained 
• estimated 1.5 Bcf/d capacity remains from Midwest, Northeast, Permian 
• summer-2020 Gulf Coast demand growth anchored by LNG liquefaction

Too much natural gas (and that amount is increasing) from Carthage, Perryville; not enough pipeline capacity to get the natural gas to Louisiana and east Texas. Producers have to cut costs to get access on pipeline. From the northeast, natural gas prices are, apparently, running ten to twenty-four cents behind Henry Hub prices. Farther afield, from the northeast and the midwest (think Bakken), the discount is even greater -- Chicago is 22 cents below Henry Hub while Dominion South is as much as 42 cents below Henry Hub.

As summer approaches, the situation will worsen; producers will do what it takes to get their product in the pipeline, and the discounts will widen.

While flow data along much of the North-to-South corridor appears to suggest ample capacity to reach the Gulf Coast, bottlenecks actually exist closer to locations like Henry Hub and Houston Ship Channel.

From the article:

For Midwest and Northeast gas flowing to the Gulf Coast on key interstate corridors – ANR Pipeline, Columbia Gulf Transmission, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America, Tennessee Gas Pipeline, Texas Eastern Transmission, Texas Gas Transmission, Trunkline Gas and Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line – congestion south of Carthage in West Louisiana and south of Perryville in the state's northeast will pose serious constraints to gas moving southbound next summer.

According to Platts Analytics, approximately 500 MMcf/d of available capacity remains between Carthage and Houston Ship Channel on Gulf South Pipeline, NPGL, Tennessee and Texas Eastern.

From Perryville to Henry Hub, a combined 83% utilization rate last summer on ANR Pipeline, Columbia Gulf, Tennessee, Texas Gas and Trunkline left about 1 Bcf/d of available capacity along the other key southbound corridor.

Including the eastbound corridor from the Permian Basin, Platts Analytics estimates that last summer, roughly 1.5 Bcf/d of spare capacity to Houston Ship Channel and Henry Hub remained from West Texas, Carthage and Perryville.

Compared to summer 2019, demand along the East Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts is forecast to rise about 4 Bcf/d, anchored principally by the growth in LNG liquefaction activity.

[So, if I'm reading this correctly, there may be 1 Bcf/d of available capacity, but demand is likely to rise above 4 Bcf/d -- if I'm reading that correctly -- holy mackerel -- that's a huge gap.]

At Freeport LNG, the startup of commercial service at Train 2 and Train 3 is expected by February and June, respectively.

At Cameron LNG, Train 2 and Train 3 are scheduled to enter service by April and August.

Along with a higher anticipated utilization rate at Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass, LNG producers will likely require an incremental 3.5 Bcf/d of gas this summer compared to last.

Additional factors weighing on the region's available supply include stronger demand from Gulf Coast power generators and industry, as well an anticipated decline in Gulf Coast and offshore gas production.

Compared to last summer, though, more supply should be delivered to the East Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast region from Kinder Morgan's 2 Bcf/d Gulf Coast Express, which entered service last September.

Hmmmm....one of my regular readers knows the natural gas pipeline story very, very well from an investment point of view. It will be interesting to see if she/he has anything to add regarding this story.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, career, travel, job, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

KMI:

• currently trading at $21.51
• from one year ago, up from $17.32 one year ago
• pays 4.73%
• target: $22.27

See Motley Fool -- ten largest pipeline companies by enterprise value.

WMB:

• currently trading at $23.50
• from one year ago, down from $25.45
• pays 6.36%
• target: $27.46

OKE:

• currently trading at $75.53
• from one year ago, up from $60.96
• pays 4.84%
• target: $75.68

This article is two years old, but provides a nice overview. Look at the discounts (two cents to ten cents) back in 2017 and then compare them to the discounts, in 2020, noted above.

Growing demand along the Gulf Coast from industrial projects and exports have driven up Houston Ship Channel basis relative to Henry Hub from a discount of $0.02 in the summer of 2017 to a premium of $0.11 for May 2017. While Houston Ship Channel and Henry Hub prices are both much stronger year over year, pricing at Carthage and Perryville have seen discounts to Henry Hub widen to $0.10 back.

It sounds like the discounts will be "bad" on the pipelines leading into Carthage and Perryville, but the discounts will be even greater on the pipelines between Carthage/Perryville and Henry Hub.

It Looks Like Natural Gas Is The Big Story -- July 7, 2019

Link here.

From the linked article:

America is awash in natural gas. In parts of the country there’s hardly a drop to burn.

Earlier this year, two utilities that service the New York City area stopped accepting new natural-gas customers in two boroughs and several suburbs. Citing jammed supply lines running into the city on the coldest winter days, they said they couldn’t guarantee they’d be able to deliver gas to additional furnaces. Never mind that the country’s most prolific gas field, the Marcellus Shale, is only a three-hour drive away.

U.S. gas production rose to a record of more than 37 trillion cubic feet last year, up 44% from a decade earlier. Yet the infrastructure needed to move gas around the country hasn’t kept up. Pipelines aren’t in the right places, and when they are, they’re usually decades old and often too small.

That's as far as I read: I wonder if the article mentioned Cuomo, Schumer, Occasional-Cortex, or Algore.

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Boeing Update

We talked about this earlier. It will be interesting to see where this story goes.

From the linked article:

Analysts estimate it could take several years to get MAX deliveries back on plan. Hundreds of planes are sitting idle with airlines, more have been built but not yet delivered and Boeing also slowed MAX production in April, effectively delaying future deliveries to some customers.

Largest Cross-Border Natural Gas Pipeline (By Volume) To Be Operational Early This Summer -- April 19, 2019

Re-posting because it's making America great again. 

From SeekingAlpha:

TransCanada and IEnova's (Sempra Energy) Sur de Texas-Tuxpan pipeline to add U.S. natural gas export capacity to Mexico should come online by the end of June.

The Texas-to-Mexico pipeline had been expected to come online by mid-February but technical and other problems have delayed the project by more than a year.

Sur de Texas will connect with Enbridge's 2.6B cf/day Valley Crossing pipeline; once the entire pipeline system comes online, it will comprise the largest cross-border gas pipeline by volume.

Haynesville Sets All-Time Natural Gas Production Record -- April 19, 2010

The Haynesville is tracked here. Beats production record set back in 2011. Data points:

• old record, 2011: 10.4 billion cubic feet per day (1.73 million boepd)
• April, 2019, currently producing: 10.522 billion cubic feet per day (1.75 million boepd)
• forecast: to hit 10.754 billion cubic feet per day
• Haynesville, currently #3 in US natural gas production (depths, 10,500 - 13,500 feet)
• #1: Appalachia basin: Marcellus and Utica (depths, 4,000 to 8,500 feet)
• #2: Permian
• Haynesville began to rebound in 2017: increasing rig count; improved IP rates

Natural Gas, April 11, 2019, T+99, Part 2 -- Making America Great

Updates

April 12, 2019: with regard to the note below, a reader noted --

"Unfortunately: NGCC power plants are less efficient than other forms of natural gas-fired capacity." Did you mean non combined cycle are less efficient - like single stage peak load generators....the other 1/2?

Original Post

Natural gas milestone, 2018: US natural gas-fired combined-cycle capacity overtook coal-fired capacity in 2018.

NGCC.

• 2019, US:
• NGCC capacity: 264 GW
• coal plant capacity: 243 GW
• NGCC capacity: accounts for about half of all natural gas-fired capacity in the US

Unfortunately: NGCC power plants are less efficient than other forms of natural gas-fired capacity.

Last four years:

• coal: shed 40 GW of capacity
• NGCC: added about 30 GW 

Examples:

• Duke Energy: $1.5 billion, 1.64 GW Citrus Combined Cycle Station in Florida
• Dominion Energy: $1.3 billion, 1.6 GW Greensville station in Virginia

$1.5 billion / 1.6 GW =  $1 million / MW
New natural gas capacity for 2019: should add 6 GW of electricity -- mostly in PA, FL, and LA

It's very interesting: California is not mentioned in the article. In fact, the entire west coast is AWOL.

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Skills For The 21st Century

Never Would Have Happened Under Previous Administration -- US Approves TransCanada Pipeline, Keeping America Great -- March 1, 2019

Making America great. Link here.

• Mountaineer XPress natural gas pipeline project
• will link the Appalachian basin's natural gas supplies with global markets
• $3.2 billion project
• 170-mile pipeline in West Virginia
• will increase natural gas capacity by 2.7 billion cfpd (333,000 boe)
• approval will allow TransCanada to start partial in-service of its Gulf Xpress Project, a network of seven new compressor stations in KY, TN, and MS
• will significantly increase the reach of low-cost, US-produced NG from the Appalachian Basin
• investment in Gulf XPress: $600 million
• Gulf XPress: additional capacity of 530,000 million cfpd (sic) -- I wonder if that isn't supposed to be 530 million (or 530,000 mcfpd)?

Note this:

In mid-February, TransCanada said it had revised upward its project costs for the Mountaineer XPress project to US$3.2 billion, due to delays in regulatory approvals from FERC and other agencies, higher contractor costs due to unusually high demand for construction resources in the region, inclement weather during construction, and changes in contractor work plans to mitigate delays. 

Something tells me the delays occurred "under" the previous administration.

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For Los Angeles:
February Has Never Been This Cold In "Weather-Recorded" History

Link here.

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For Bismarck, ND:
A Record Cold February

Link here.

From the linked article:

Meteorological winter in Bismarck was the coldest since 1979, according to the National Weather Service. 

Meteorologists measure winter from Dec. 1 to the last day of February. The 2018-19 winter had an average temperature of minus 0.4 degrees, said meteorologist Ken Simosko. 

Bismarck's meteorological winter was the fifth coldest on record, after 1979, 1887, 1875 and record 1936 — which had an average temperature of minus 11.4 degrees.

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Pancakes For Dinner

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 -- Making America Great -- US Steel, Natural Gas. Hollywood? Not So Much....

Box Office: winter, 2019, revenue hit an 8-year low in the US. Link here. The entertainment coming out of Washington, DC, swamped (pun intended) whatever was coming out of Hollywood. Where are the Coen Brothers when we need them?

US Steel: making America great. US Steel reopens Texas mill as industry rebounds. Just as predicted.

U.S. Steel is opening a previously shuttered East Texas mill after market conditions that originally forced the manufacturer to close the facility have improved.

The process of reopening the shuttered No. 1 Electric-Weld Pipe Mill at Lone Star Tubular Operations in Lone Star, Texas — about two hours east of Dallas — began immediately, the Pittsburgh company announced earlier this month. About 140 people will be hired at the mill.

"We are encouraged by an improvement in market conditions and an increased customer demand for tubular products that are mined, melted and made in America," said David Burritt, president and chief executive of United States Steel Corp. (NYSE: X), in a prepared statement.

U.S. Steel permanently idled the facility in 2016 when oil prices were low and activity in the Permian Basin slowed considerably. Also, the domestic steel market was suffering from cheap Turkish and Indian imports that undercut American prices.

Three years later, the landscape looks very different.

The Permian Basin in West Texas is roaring and producing at record amounts. And after President Trump took office, he levied steel import tariffs against several countries in an attempt to kickstart the struggling industry.

Trump may not be the smartest man in the room, but .... he knows American business.

Natural gas: can US production keep up with demand? Data points:

• Mexico now imports 7 percent of US daily production
• consumption by electric power sector increased by nearly 50% from 2005 to 2016, reaching 27 Bcf/d
• industrial demand has also increased by 30 percent as some manufacturing relocated to the US to take advantage of low gas prices
• demand has also increased from LNG exports: LNG exports have reached almost 4 Bcf/d (December, 2019

Somewhere out there, there's gotta be intelligent life ... but then, again, it's hard enough finding intelligent life on earth. Scientists have just "found," "discovered," counted 300,000 more galaxies in the "known" universe. Link here. And that was just looking at "a segment of the northern sky." Of course, I can't put this into perspective because:

• they don't say how "big" that segment of the sky was (if the segment represented only 1% of the "sphere," the total number of observable galaxies might increase by a factor of 100
• they don't say how many galaxies they have counted so far

Where's Paul Sagan when you need him?

Shale Revolution -- Natural Gas -- September 1, 2018

From the EIA:

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The Country That Can't Close A Deal ....

.... but he sure is photogenic. Eh, what just happened?

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But Will Amazon Ship For Free?

Haynesville Natural Gas Monthly Production Hits Five-Year High -- August 10, 2018

In case you missed it. Haynesville monthly natural gas production, reaches five-year high:

Sunday Morning -- July 8, 2018 -- When I Get To Heaven

Part 2. Part 1 was here. Part 3 is here.

When I Get To Heaven, John Prine
From a reader: the shale gas revolution has just begun, from Forbes.

The shale gas revolution is turning ten years old and is apparently only just getting started.

A new report by the business information provider IHS Markit traces the remarkable rise of the shale gas in the United States over the past decade and projects that natural gas production will grow by another 60% over the next 20 years.

“To say that the ‘Shale Gale’. . . has been anything but a veritable revolution would be an understatement,” said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman, IHS Markit and co-author of the report. “It represents a dramatic and largely unanticipated turnaround that dramatically changed both markets and long-term thinking about energy.”

Remind me to send a note to Art Berman and Jane Nielson. And The New York Times. And not only that, the revolution is occurring in The New York Times' own backyard:

Shale gas has fundamentally altered the domestic energy landscape. The Northeast has replaced the Gulf Coast as the largest gas producing region in the United States. Pennsylvania and New York, which traditionally imported most of their energy, are becoming energy exporters.

New York? Are they fracking in New York?

Google "natural gas production New York state".

From 1996:

The twenty-five year period from 1970 to 1994 illustrates the rise and subsequent decline and aging of the natural gas industry in New York State. With reported natural gas production for 1970 at almost three billion cubic feet, New York State's gas industry was poised to expand in both drilling and production that culminated sixteen years later, in 1986, when natural gas production reached its pinnacle at more than 34.7 billion cubic feet and then started a slow decline.

For 2017:

For the 2017 calendar year, 764 well owners reported a total of 12,045 oil and gas wells. Oil production in New York decreased 3.3% from the previous year for a total of 214,828 barrels reported by purchasers. Total reported gas production was 11.4 billion cubic feet (bcf), a 16% decrease from 2016. Gas production was primarily driven by wells in the Medina formation (5.2 bcf). Significant 2017 production was also reported for the Trenton-Black River formation (3.2 bcf), Herkimer (0.8 bcf), and Queenston (1.1 bcf) formations.

1986: natural gas production in NY state "reached its pinnacle at more than 34.7 billion cubic feet and then started a slow decline ... fast forward to 2017, total reported gas production was 11.4 billion cubic feet (bcf), a 16% decrease from 2016.

I assume these formations produce natural gas without fracking. The NY state ban on fracking remains in effect. But look at this NPR story. Wow, what incredible hypocrisy.

From the EIA, note that New York state doesn't even meet production numbers to get on the chart:

So, some 11 billion cubic feet of natural gas coming out of New York state compared with 15 billion cubic feet coming out of Pennsylvania.

So, with 11 billion from NY state and 15 billion from Pennsylvania, why didn't New York state make the chart.

Holy c**p. Am I reading this correctly?

Go back to the data.

New York state, 2017: total production was 11.4 billion cubic feet for the entire year.

Pennsylvania: 15 billion cubic feet per day.

Please tell me I'm missing something. I must be misreading this. From Forbes again:

Shale gas has fundamentally altered the domestic energy landscape. The Northeast has replaced the Gulf Coast as the largest gas producing region in the United States. Pennsylvania and New York, which traditionally imported most of their energy, are becoming energy exporters.

Why is New York included in that sentence?

That linked NPR article suggests New York is a net importer of natural gas, but importing it from Pennsylvania.

Something tells me I'm going to be hugely embarrassed when a reader points out what I am missing and I'm an idiot. 

Oil? From official New York state data:

Oil production in New York decreased 3.3% from the previous year for a total of 214,828 barrels reported by purchasers.

214,828 bbls of oil produced in New York state in one year, sitting on top of huge reserves. North Dakota produces five times that amount in one day from four counties.

US Natural Gas Production Hits All-Time Record In April -- EIA -- Argus Media -- June 30, 2018 -- So The Magic Number Is 90 BCFPD

From ArgusMedia:

US natural gas output hit a record high in April above 89 Bcf/d (2.5bn m³/d) as production rose in Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Gross gas production from the lower-48 states rose in April to 89.1 Bcf/d, up by 0.3pc, or 252mn cf/d from March, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said today in its monthly production report. April output has surged by 12pc from a year earlier as new infrastructure allowed more northeast gas to reach market and as producers continued to shore up fresh oil supplies from places like the Permian basin. 

Rising gas production and expectations for future supply growth has put downward pressure on prices this year.

Natural gas futures so far this summer have failed to sustain a rally above $3/mmBtu, despite low inventories and hot weather, a sign of confidence in continued growth.

A Graphic Worth 10,000 Words -- March 30, 2018

It would be interesting to have a similar graph with two natural gas exporters superimposed / compared: the US and Qater. Or the US and Russia. Or the US and anyone else.

How Two Wells in Wyoming Explain the Natural-Gas Glut -- WSJ -- March 22, 2018

From The Wall Street Journal today: How Two Wells in Wyoming Explain the Natural-Gas Glut. Demand is growing, but so are the troves of gas being unearthed by prospectors. With 154 comments.

I don't think this article adds much to the discussion but it's interesting nonetheless.

From the lede:

Fuel prices are depressed. A pair of wells in southwest Wyoming helps explain why.
This winter, Ultra Petroleum Corp., just months after emerging from bankruptcy, completed two huge wells in the state, drilling down more than two miles and then sideways for another two. Each have produced enough gas to fuel every household in Wyoming.

Ultra’s wells—whose initial flows have been among the largest ever in the U.S.—show how prospectors continue to unearth huge troves of gas.

That output is offsetting increases in the fuel’s use and keeping a lid on prices.

Repeat: each well has already produced enough gas to fuel every household in Wyoming.

The other nice thing about the article -- because of the blog I was able to a) understand it; and, b) put it in perspective.

"Two miles down and then sideways for another two miles": identical to what's going on in the Bakken.

From the article:

In April 2016, Ultra filed for bankruptcy protection after low gas prices pushed its earnings relative to debt below thresholds spelled out in agreements with creditors. When the Houston company emerged from bankruptcy protection a year later, it embarked on a plan to drill horizontal wells.

A horizontal well in 2016 was a flop. But this time, Ultra drilled a gusher, which maxed out at the equivalent of 51 million cubic feet a day. A third well was far less prolific.

For the fourth well, begun in January, the company went back to the more successful well design, which involved pumping 281,000 barrels of water and 12.4 million pounds of sand beneath the surface. This attempt was even better than the preceding one, producing as much as the equivalent of 54.5 million cubic feet a day. It cost about $9 million.

 281,000 bbls of water? What's that? Converts to 11 million gallons of water.

Sand: about 11%.

Water, sand, percentage: about the same we are seeing in the big fracks in the Bakken. Ultra may have gotten the "ink" today, but operators in the Bakken have been doing this for the past ten (10) years. And for less money in many cases.

US Natural Gas Production, A Random Update -- March 3, 2018

Updates

NOTE: from million tonnes LNG per year (MTPA) to Bcf/d = multiply the former by 0.131584156

March 4, 2018: China became second largest importer of LNG (after Japan) in 2017; Japan 11 Bcf/d; China, 5 Bcf/d; but Japan's and Korean imports have remained steady for years; China's is growing significantly; see EIA data;

March 4, 2018: the world needs a lot more LNG -- Royal Dutch Shell --

• global trade volumes of LNG have doubled since 2005, and will continue to rise
• the US will boast almost 10 billion cfpd of LNG export capacity by the end of 2019
• US will be the third-largest LNG exporter, right behind Australia and Qater
• that alone is amazing, but then consider this: two years ago (2016), the US had less than 1 Bcf/d of export capacity
• Shell says the global supply of LNG won't meet demand
• Shell expects the supply crunch to occur i the early 2020s mostly due to the way buyers/sellers interact
• buyers want smaller, more flexible, shorter (in duration) contracts
• sellers want the opposite to lock in prices / volumes to cover very expensive terminals ($4 billion for Cove Point)
• sellers have responded: smaller trains at Cove Point; floating terminals

March 4, 2018: with regard to the Cove Point comment below, see this Reuters story --

• first vessel carry LNG from newly constructed Cove Point LNG export terminal in Maryland has departed as of Friday (remember all the protesting again Cove Point? with revelations of Russia's meddling in US politics, the dots are starting to connect; I always thought it was Saudi Arabia sponsoring protests against shale, pipelines, natural gas -- nope, it was the Russians; if they dupe people into anti-Hillary demonstrations supporting Bernie Sanders, certainly they could do much more in the energy arena)
• the facility is still undergoing final commissioning
• Cove Point is the second big LNG export terminal in the Lower 48; after Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana which exported its first cargo in February, 2016
• US became an exporter of LNG in 2017 for the first time in 60 years
• the US will become the third largest LNG exporter this year (2018)

Later, 10:32 p.m. CT: see comments --

Regarding LNG and its export ...

Two developments will greatly assist US companies to bypass existing LNG producers, namely modularization and ship-based LNG plants.

Modularization: Tellurian cost to produce 27 mtpa (almost double Yamal [ Russia, Arctic]) is about $16 billion (about half Yamal) using the modularization approach.

Floating LNG: Delfin plans on using FLNGs -- ships -- to greatly lower the price to liquify gas.

Later, 9:59 p.m. CT: see first comment --

The Cove Point MD LNG just shipped its first test cargo of LNG the other day. [Think of all the jobs this "operation" has produced.]

At 750 MMcfd capacity, it will increase US exports a bit.

One year from now, pipelines will be online carrying 10 Bcfd gas out of the Appalachian Basin. This will increase AB (Appalachian Basin) production from 25 to 35 Bcfd ... simply a staggering amount.  [Again, to put that in perspective -- Bloomberg Gadfly points out that the additional 7 billion cfd growth this year is staggering -- imagine multiplying that 7 billion by four or five times -- and that's just one year from now.]

More increases will continue.

People are gonna be shocked at how much gas the US will be producing 5 years from now.

Original Post 

Natural gas, US production, EIA, the graphic:

Bloomberg, the Gadfly, January, 2018:

Again, to repeat, the US will add the equivalent of the entire output of Turkmenistan -- one of the world's largest gas exporters -- in the space of just one year.

According to a google search:

During 2009, Qatar exported over 2.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

From SeekingAlpha, March 2, 2018:

The big fundamental news this week was that Lower 48 production averaged an all-time high of ~78.4 Bcf/d, and LNG exports reached ~4 Bcf/d.

80 billion x 30 days = 2,400 billion cf/month -- compare to  2,427 billion in the EIA graph at the top.

Disclaimer: I often make simple arithmetic errors, especially dealing with large numbers.

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Just Dropped In ...

... To See What Condition My Condition Was In, Kenny Rodgers and The First Edition

Random Update Of The Appalachian Gas Field -- Incredible -- January 21, 2018

I wouldn't post / link this except for the fact I've had a very loyal reader who has been pointing this out for the past two years. From oilprice, the world's most innovate gas field -- Appalachian gas. Some data points:

• Appalachian gas production has surged over 85% since 2014
• produces more gas than all other shale plays in the US combined
• a late of pipeline projects finally coming on line in 2018
• huge and unexpected divergence between rig count and total gas output (is rig count relevant any more?)
• production per well continued to increase; has now set a record: 26,027 mcf/day (record set last month)
• a new Marcellus gas well today yields almost twice as much gas as the same with well with similar latitude/longitude in Hanynesville field, East Texas, the second largest producing gas region in the US
• now drilling super laterals -- as long as 20,000 feet long
• multi-well pad now the standard; typical pad currently expect to contain a dozen wells
• "walking" rigs; takes just a few days as opposed to months to complete a well all the while achieving 50% increase in efficiency
• latest example: Eclipse Resources drilled a Utica well in less than 17 days; length exceeding 19,000 feet
• cost of an average well has dropped from $1.2 million in 2011 to $300,000 currently
• the expected IRR for a 12-well pad with 12,000 feet lateral exceeds 100%
• the expected IRR for a 5-well pad with 5,500 feet lateral barely breaks 70% mark

Much more at the link.

A Most Incredible Graph -- Global Warming Causes A Surge In Natural Gas Use -- January 11, 2018

A stunning graphic, simply stunning:

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Sun Dogs

From The Bismarck Tribune, via Twitter:

I first read about sun dogs when reading Shakespeare some years ago.

Here are two links:

• when sun dogs changed England
• wiki, with a photo from Fargo, ND, of all things

US Natural Gas Demand -- Setting All-Time Records -- Making America Great Again -- January 8, 2018

From the EIA, January 5, 2018:

Bakken, An Oily Play, Is Producing More Natural Gas Than The Mediterranean's Largest Offshore Natural Gas Field -- December 16, 2017

Egypt's giant natural gas field has started production, according to Bloomberg (pay wall) but Reuters also has the story:

• the Zohr field may turn Egypt from LNG importer to gas exporter
• Egypt’s Eni SpA-operated Zohr natural gas field will bring the country closer to its goal of energy self-sufficiency
• discovered in 2015 by Italy’s Eni, the field contains an estimated 30 trillion cubic feet of gas

Gas from the Mediterranean’s largest offshore field is pumped to a facility in Port Said city, to be prepared for delivery to the national distribution network, with initial production of 350 million cubic feet per day. Daily output is set to rise to about 1 billion cubic feet in June and 2.7 billion by the end of 2019, he said.

So just how big is that "giant" field that has captured Bloomberg's attention? For natural gas, about the same size as the Bakken?

First the data points again, from that huge Egyptian gas field:

• 350 million cubic feet per day initial production
• 1 billion cubic feet per day by June (2018?)
• 2.7 billion cubic feet by the end of 2019

Natural gas production from the "oily" Bakken, North Dakota, October, 2017 (most recent month being reported)

• 63,918,772,000 cubic feet for the month of October
• divided by 31 days = 2,061,895,879 bbls/day OR 2.061 billion cubic feet 

It would be nice for Bloomberg to provide some comparison with the Bakken or the Permian. Thank you very much.

See also this post for reserves of natural gas around the world.