NGVs and Natural Gas Supply

The U.S. natural gas resource base is huge and growing.

Advanced technologies are unlocking vast quantities of natural gas both on land and below the ocean floor. When experts talk about the opportunities, they use words like “unprecedented” and “an energy revolution,” making this the perfect time to use more of this domestic resource as a transportation fuel.

Almost all – more than 98 percent -- of the natural gas consumed in the United States comes from North America. The vast majority of this – more than 85 percent – is produced in the United States, and the remaining supplies come by pipeline from Canada. A very small percentage – less than one percent –is imported from outside of North America.

Two respected authorities, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Potential Gas Committee, provide estimates of resources.

In 2011, the Potential Gas Committee reported its highest resource evaluation in the Committee’s 46-year history. The report, which is done every two years, provides a reasonable appraisal of what the potential natural gas resources are. In 2009, the Committee reported an unprecedented increase in the magnitude of natural gas resources in the United States, and its 2011 report exceeded the previous record-high assessment.

The committee’s conclusion: the country has more than a 100-year supply of natural gas using the technology we have today. The United States consumes about 20 trillion cubic feet of gas a year, and the Potential Gas Committee estimated that the country has a total available future supply of 2,174 trillion cubic feet of gas, an increase of 89 Tcf over the previous evaluation.

The committee reported that the country’s richest resource area is below the waters in the Gulf of Mexico, where production is now going on off the coast of Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.

The newest finds – called shale plays – have been on land, where producers have used advanced technologies to discover and produce natural gas from shale rock formations. These new technologies allow producers to find the pockets of natural gas within these formations and bring the natural gas to the surface. Natural gas is now being produced from shale formations found in Louisiana, Texas, the Rocky Mountains and an areas stretching from West Virginia through New York.

Both the Potential Gas Committee and the U.S. Energy Information Agency note the growing importance of shale gas. The Potential Gas Committee estimates that shale gas accounts for 36 percent of the total U.S. resources. In its Annual Energy Outlook 2011, the Energy Information Administration doubled its estimates of technically recoverable shale gas production.

For more extensive information, check out these other resources:

• Click here to link to the Natural Gas Supply Association’s information on natural gas supply and demand
  
• Click here for more information from America’s Natural Gas Alliance about natural gas resources.
  
• Click here to read the U.S. Department of Energy’s Modern Shale Gas Development in the United States: A Primer.