As Natural Gas Declines, Drilling Rises
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 11:16PM ;)
New gas wells just aren’t what they used to be. Even after drilling more than 300,000 new natural gas wells over the last 35 years, the U.S. produces less natural gas now than it did back in 1973. Putting more holes in the ground doesn’t make more gas – in fact, quite the opposite. Just ten years ago, the U.S. was drilling about 11,000 new wells per year to maintain a production rate of 20 Quads of gas per year – a rate that hasn’t changed in more than thirty years. Today, drillers must complete three times that many wells to produce the same amount of gas.
Despite the furious pace of drilling, the amount of natural gas in storage for winter is about 5 percent lower than it was at this time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. If the injection season finishes poorly, or drilling platforms and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico sustain a big hit from Hurricane Ike this weekend, the price of natural gas could skyrocket this winter the way it did back in 2001. The difference this time is that our ability to respond with increased drilling is limited.
Reader Comments (1)
It appears that the T. Boone Pickens plan, (sadly, endorsed by the Sierra Club), for more natural gas and so-called "clean" natural gas must bump against these figures evenutally, even if the New Mexico public is lured (even as we speak! Pickens is in Albuquerque today) into believing that this part of Picken's plan could work. Even the Obama campaign has yet to acknowledge that the real issue is not "no more FOREIGN oil", but no more oil, gas, or fossil anything when better alternatives exist. Of course, I'm stating the obvious when I remind readers that the solution to energy crises involves a major shift in our notion of HOW solutions are chosen in the first place. Does anyone remember how a democracy works when it is not superceded by corporate interests? --when the well-being of actual living beings is the priority?