Energy Education: Natural Gas
Natural gas plays a vital role in powering the United State’s economy. Used in everything from domestic cooking and heating to industrial production from cars to textiles, natural gas is an energy resource the country both produces domestically and imports. Due to the natural of natural gas wells, which have an initial surge in production that then falls off, companies producing natural gas must constantly be looking for new supplies and drilling new wells.
With demand for natural gas forecasted to grow by one third by 2025, domestic natural gas producers must continually drill new wells in the Gulf of Mexico and the states that account for the majority of the US’s natural gas production. Unfortunately, these locations have historically been subject to periodic declines in production due to weather, such as in 2005 when production dropped three percent in part due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Did you know the following about natural gas?
Production
• After reaching a peak of 21.7 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) in 1973, U.S. dry natural gas production declined as low as 16.1 Tcf in 1986
• Between 1986 and 2001, dry natural gas production generally increased, reaching 19.6 Tcf in 2001, then decreasing to 18.1 Tcf in 2005
• Dry natural gas production is expected to increase to about 21.0 Tcf in 2022 and then decline to 20.5 Tcf by 2030
• World production of dry natural gas is dominated by the United States (18.8 Tcf) and Russia (22.4 Tcf), whose combined gross production accounted for about 42 percent of the 98.6 Tcf produced in 2004.
Imports
• Imports of natural gas in 2005 totaled 4.3 Tcf, which is the equivalent of 19.5 percent of total U.S. natural gas consumed
• Today’s imports account for roughly 23 percent of the total natural gas the U.S. consumes
• The vast majority of these imports arrive from Canada via pipeline.
• After an increase in 2004 over 2003, pipeline imports grew again in 2005 by 2.9 percent to 3.7 Tcf
Storage
• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that is cooled to -260 degrees Fahrenheit at atmospheric pressure, at which point the gas becomes a liquid.
• As a liquid, over 600 cubic feet of natural gas can occupy the same amount of space that one cubic foot of natural gas would at standard conditions.
• There were 394 active underground storage fields in the United States during 2005 for dry natural gas storage
• Dry natural gas is injected into these fields primarily during April through October and withdrawn during November through March.
• The volume of working gas in storage during 2005 ranged from more than 3.2 Tcf at the end of October to 1.3 Tcf at the end of March.
The Energy Advocates supports all forms of domestically produced energy. The Energy Advocates promotes education on energy security issues and promote a stronger future for America’s energy needs.
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