… Continue Reading“Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933)
“[The 1930s Great Depression and today’s Great Recession] were preceded by extraordinary expansions of bank credit, which fueled run-up’s in stock prices and real estate values…. The two economic crises also elicited similar (and equally counterproductive ) fiscal policy responses, combining substantial increases in federal spending, financed primarily by bollorwing, with higher taxes and more regulatory controls on the private sector.”
In Part 1 of this series, the trends in U.S. unconventional gas output in were explored. The impacts on gas markets — $3–5/MMBtu — were noted. If unconventional gas puts pressure on LNG and Gazprom, can this supply and supplier turn to Asia as their new market? Maybe, and just for a while. (1)
1.1.1 Australia’s Experience with Coal Seam Gas
CSG accounts for almost 15% of Australia’s growing gas production, and as much as 30% of probable reserves. LNG plants based on CSG are slated to commence production in 2014, with production of 794 Bcf/y (~16.7 mtpa). Australia’s CSG is believed to occur roughly above shale gas basins, raising the possibility of further unconventional production. Figure 1 shows the CSG, conventional gas fields and transmission infrastructure in Australia’s Queensland State.…
Continue Reading[Editor note: Part II tomorrow will summarize unconventional gas developments in Europe and Asia.]
In 2003 and again in 2005, Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, called on America’s governors and natural gas users to embrace vastly larger imports of methane energy. In his words: “North America’s limited capacity to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) has effectively restricted our access to the world’s abundant gas supplies.”
As he was speaking, a revolution was brewing under his feet. New methods of producing gas from unconventional resources–tight gas, coalbed methane (cbm) and shale gas–had greatly expanded the universe of gas resources available throughout the world.
By the end of that decade, the U.S., Australia and Canada would be able to book unconventional reserve additions in excess of annual production from all gas sources.…
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