The natural gas industry will release a study Wednesday that is expected to show natural gas reserves remaining strong, underscoring the nation’s bullish standing as the world’s leading gas and oil producer.
The industry study will show the amount of gas held deep underground in shale deposits will remain high and keep prices low for consumers as hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, is expected to increase.
The America Gas Association and the Potential Gas Committee say they will release “major findings” from the committee’s biennial report, titled the “Potential supply of natural gas in the United States.”
The report “is expected to reveal that domestic estimates of undiscovered natural gas resources continue to grow, due largely to the existence of technologies that continue to unlock energy resources from shale and other producing formations.”
The report also will discuss how long-term supplies of natural gas will continue to benefit “customers and the nation” by keeping prices relatively low in the years to come.
The committee’s past assessments have been vindicated by growing output in a number of regions with shale deposits, which in recent years have become the source of an energy renaissance in both oil and gas production.
The report follows a Tuesday government report that showed the U.S. was the world’s top oil and gas producer in 2014. “U.S. hydrocarbon production continues to exceed that of both Russia and Saudi Arabia, the second- and third-largest producers, respectively,” the Energy Information Administration said.
The gas industry’s study comes amid new federal regulations on the process known as fracking — where water and sand are injected deep underground to produce natural gas from shale. Environmentalists want tighter rules on the process because of concerns that gas production releases methane into the atmosphere, as well as water contamination fears.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas. Many scientists say these gases are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise. The Obama administration is supportive of environmentalists’ concerns over fracking as it pursues new regulations alongside a climate change agenda.
Fracking skeptics also say the shale reserves will run dry sooner than the Potential Gas Committee has predicted in its modeling. But many more are less skeptical as production in recent years has remained steady and increased storage capacity has kept much of that gas on hand.
The result has been little fluctuation in the per-unit price of natural gas.
Even with a price surge for gas futures last week, the per-unit price for May delivery remained below a historically inexpensive $3 per million British thermal units, which is how gas is calculated when sold — similar to the per barrel price of oil.
The price fluctuations come as the winter heating season ends and natural gas storage is reduced. Typically, that is followed by increased production to replenish gas supplies.
However, the drawdown in gas supplies over the winter wasn’t as high as expected. That could help proponents of exporting liquefied natural gas by showing that even with higher demand, there is enough production to justify opening an export market.
