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And why the aren't we pushing natural gas vehicles?
A gallon of gas = 125,000 btu of energy and costs almost $4.
1000 cu ft of natural gas has 1,000,000 btu of energy and costs $2.
pretty ing simple math.
Long stroy short:
Projections are that our capacity to store the natgas we drill will be reached in October. We have drilled so much so fast, we have outpaced domestic demand.
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Natural gas glut means drilling boom must slow
By JONATHAN FAHEY, AP Energy Writer – 3 days ago
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. natural gas market is bursting at the seams.
So much natural gas is being produced that soon there may be nowhere left to put the country's swelling surplus. After years of explosive growth, natural gas producers are retrenching.
The underground salt caverns, depleted oil fields and aquifers that store natural gas are rapidly filling up after a balmy winter depressed demand for home heating.
The glut has benefited businesses and homeowners that use natural gas. But with natural gas prices at a 10-year low — and falling — companies that produce the fuel are becoming victims of their drilling successes. Their stock prices are falling in anticipation of declining profits and scaled-back growth plans.
Some of the nation's biggest natural gas producers, including Chesapeake Energy, ConocoPhillips and Encana Corp., have announced plans to slow down.
"They've gotten way ahead of themselves, and winter got way ahead of them too," says Jen Snyder, head of North American gas for the research firm Wood Mackenzie. "There hasn't been enough demand to use up all the supply being pushed into the market."
So far, efforts to limit production have barely made a dent. Unless the pace of production declines sharply or demand picks up significantly this summer, analysts say the nation's storage facilities could reach their limits by fall.
That would cause the price of natural gas, which has been halved over the past year, to nosedive. Citigroup commodities analyst Anthony Yuen says the price of natural gas — now $2.08 per 1,000 cubic feet — could briefly fall below $1.
"There would be no floor," he says.
Since October, the number of drilling rigs exploring for natural gas has fallen by 30 percent to 658, according to the energy services company Baker Hughes. Some of the sharpest drop-offs have been in the Haynesville Shale in Northwestern Louisiana and East Texas and the Fayetteville Shale in Central Arkansas. But natural gas production is still growing, the result of a five-year drilling boom that has peppered the country with wells.
The workers and rigs aren't just being sent home. They are instead being put to work drilling for oil, whose price has averaged more than $100 a barrel for months. The oil rig count in the U.S is at a 25-year high. This activity is adding to the natural gas glut because natural gas is almost always a byproduct of oil drilling.
Analysts say that before long companies could have to start slowing the gas flow from existing wells or even take the rare and expensive step of capping off some wells completely.
"Something is going to have to give," says Maria Sanchez, manager of energy analysis at Bentek Energy, a research firm.
U.S. natural gas production has boomed in recent years as a result of new drilling techniques that allow companies to unlock fuel trapped in shale formations. Last year, the U.S. produced an average of 63 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, a 24 percent increase from 2006. But over that period consumption has grown half as fast.
The nation's storage facilities could easily handle this extra supply until recently because cold winters pushed up demand for heating and hot summers led to higher demand for air conditioning. Just over half the nation's homes are heated with natural gas, and one-quarter of its electricity is produced by gas-fired power plants.
But this past winter was the fourth warmest in the last 117 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was the warmest March since 1950.
Between November and March, daily natural gas demand fell 5 percent, on average, from a year earlier, according to Bentek Energy. Yet production grew 8 percent over the same period.
"We haven't ever seen a situation like this before," says Chris McGill, Vice President for Policy Analysis at the American Gas Association, an industry group.
At the end of winter, there is usually about 1.5 trillion cubic feet of gas in storage. Today there is 2.5 trillion cubic feet because utilities withdrew far less than usual this past winter.
There is 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas storage capacity in the U.S. If full, that would be enough fuel to supply the country for about 2 months.
If current production and consumption trends were to continue, Bentek estimates that storage facilities would be full on October 10.
Storage capacity, which has grown by 15 percent over the past decade, cannot be built fast enough to address the rapidly expanding glut. And analysts note there is little financial incentive to build more anyway.
The low price brought on by the glut has increased demand for natural gas among industrial users and utilities.
Makers of chemicals, plastics and fertilizers that use natural gas as a feedstock are expanding. Garbage trucks, buses and delivery vehicles are using more natural gas. Electric power producers are switching from coal to natural gas whenever possible.
This won't add up to enough new demand quickly enough to relieve the pressure on storage facilities this summer.
Scorching temperatures this summer would do the trick, but Mother Nature is not expected to cooperate.
Temperatures this summer are forecast to be about normal, and much cooler than the last two summers, says David Streit, a meteorologist at Commodity Weather Group expects.
Sultry winters, he said, do not usually develop into sultry summers.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...d7b3a4eb586fac
And why the aren't we pushing natural gas vehicles?
A gallon of gas = 125,000 btu of energy and costs almost $4.
1000 cu ft of natural gas has 1,000,000 btu of energy and costs $2.
pretty ing simple math.
Would it cost $2 is all the cars were using it?
In Texas probably. Maybe a little more. The southern portion of the Eagleford Shale is full of natural gas. Even at triple the price it's still hugely cheaper than gasoline.
At $3.50 a gallon a million BTU costs $28
"why the aren't we pushing natural gas vehicles"
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/11/440...d-natural.html
The French have had CNG passengers cars and the CNG filling stations for 20+ years. They import LNG from Libya, etc
I don't think that's valid. You're using what looks like wellhead pricing. If you're going to compare apples to apples, you need to figure in tax, transportation cost, processing costs and whatever else it takes to get that natural gas to a pump for your car.
Storage and safety concerns.
Because up until recently prices have been pretty high, relative to oil. It hasn't made economic sense, coupled with the lack of refueling stations. No infrastructure. Not entirely dissimilar to EV's.
You can bet the sales of natgas trucks will probably accelerate a bit as the price settles in for the near term at historic lows.
http://www.naturalgas-vehicles.com/n...-for-sale.html
Cities with natgas buses are probably happy with it.
Sound familiar?
ref: everything you say about EV's...
Do you want to expound on this? I don't find much in the way of safety concerns other than off the cuff remarks like yours. At least not when compared to the amount of information pointing to them being as safe if not safer than gasoline powered cars.
A major hurdle to overcome is the cyclical volatility of natural gas. Unless storage capacity dramatically increases, people with natural gas cars would be vulnerable to the potential (based on historical prices) to see prices quadruple in only months during periods of severe drawdown.
It costs $7.50 per thousand cubic feet delivered right to my house.
I'm not disputing that it's currently way cheaper per MMBtu. But in your comparison, you were using $2 / Mcf.
This isn't for trolling purposes or anything, just interested. How much does it cost you to store it. (i.e. how much did the tank cost installed)?
I don't have to store it at my house. There is a (for all practical purposes) endless supply coming out of the pipeline to my house. To put it in your car/truck all it takes is a compressor.
Like who even knows this stuff off the top of their head...
I also used $3.50 for gas.
It doesn't take a math wizard to adjust the variables. It's still $7.50 compared to $28 for the same amount of energy in gasoline.
Like who even knows this stuff off the top of their head...
me for one...
Thanks. I get the math. Just making a friendly suggestion that you should compare apples to apples next time.
125,000 Btu of energy and costs almost $4
1000 cu ft of natural gas has 1,000,000 Btu
Normal people need to look that stuff up in technical manuals…
How do you put 1000 cubic feet of gas into a 20 gallon container?
Its gas under pressure. On the one side its not going to pool but on the other hand if there is a fire its not like the compartmental gas fuel tanks. It will go boom. The flash is very, very hot.
Storage is a concern because cars vibrate and gas under pressure is prone to leaks. Hydrogen is even worse because its a smaller molecule but the issue with that is when it burns it also oxidizes everything else specifically nitrogen which makes nitrates.
Most everything you are going to find on the net is going to be sourced from the natural gas lobby. If you read through enough of them you will quickly see that they even use the same phrasing.
First of all, we're not talking about hydrogen. I have no idea if it's safer or not.
Second, I'm assuming we're talking about professionally installed tanks and not someone rigging up their own system.
Compressed natural gas has a narrower range of flammability than gasoline. It also disperses very quickly into the air. In its somewhat limited use to date in cars/buses, the safety record is excellent.
oh, trust me...you can make a very big boom with natural gas. Chances are though, if the collision was so violent it ruptured the CNG tank then burning the already dead occupants of the car would just make it a better headline.
Oh, and inevitably you would have some idiots blow themselves and their houses up from human error while fueling their cars.
Hmmm. Sounds scientific enough.
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