In a turnaround that would have been unthinkable a few years ago,the US is predicted to become the world's top oil and gas producer by 2020,passing Russia and Saudi Arabia.
That is the message of a report produced by PFC Energy,a consultancy,in November. The reason is the rapid growth of production from. shale rock sources because of advances in technology.
The forecast,on a barrel of oil equivalent basis,is a marked change for a country where overall oil,gas,and gas liquids production peaked in the early 1970s.
The growth in extraction from shale has made the US the world's largest producer of natural gas. It is now poised to enter the global liquefied natural gas export market.
“North America is the second-largest source of additional LNG capacity in this decade after Australia," Nikos Tsafos,senior manager in upstream and gas at PFC.“That is truly astonishing. "
Just 10 years ago the US was trying to build terminals to import LNG. Today,those who had expected to import are moving to refit facilities so they can now export.
In late October,the BG Group signed the first long-term agreement to buy LNG from the Gulf coast,taking the US a step closer to becoming an exporter.
Roger Ihne,principal in the energy and resources practice at Deloitte,the consultancy,estimates that if the three terminals that have been approved for export proceed with their plans,the amount of gas sent abroad would be just under 10 percent of current US consumption.
And the impact on prices would be minimal,adds Tom Choi,Deloitte' s national practice leader for gas in the consultancy' s MarketPoint forecasting group. He estimates that even with that amount of fuel exported,US natural gas prices would only rise less than 2 percent because the resource is so abundant.
“Even if the US substantially increased the use of natural gas,there would still be substantial gas left to meet its domestic needs for decades," Mr Ihne says.
Nonetheless,US manufacturers,who have gained substantially from the drop in US natural gas prices associated with the shale production boom,are worned. The Industrial Energy Consumers of America,a non-partisan association of leading manufacturing companies with $ 700 billion in annual sales,is urging changes to the natural gas export permit process.
In the past ten years,Australia has been the largest source of additional liquefied natural gas capacity. ( )