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United States ramps up domestic energy production DOE’s Vicky Bailey says country will be “hard pressed to meet” the demand for gas unless greater domestic reserves can be found Gary Park PNA Canadian Correspondent
The United States is hunting for new domestic sources of energy on a wide front, from the Arctic, to liquefied natural gas imports, the Gulf of Mexico and Lower 48 onshore opportunities, various speakers told a North American Gas Strategies conference in Calgary in early November.
Vicky Bailey, assistant secretary for policy and international relations with the U.S. Department of Energy, said the United States will be “hard pressed to meet the (forecast) demand for gas unless we can manage to locate and develop far greater domestic reserves than currently exist.”
She noted the DOE’s Energy Information Administration, in a May report, predicted total U.S. gas consumption will grow by 50 percent to 34.7 trillion cubic feet in 2010.
The report emphasized the importance of “improving our energy infrastructure, both within the United States and at our borders with Canada and Mexico. We will be seeking to increase domestic production and to diversify our sources of energy,” Bailey said.
At the same time the United States will be promoting energy efficiency and expects that more than 60 percent of the projected gap in 2020 between demand and supply will be offset by conservation actions.
But demand will still grow fast enough to require Arctic gas and other sources, such as liquid natural gas, which accounted for only 6 percent of U.S. gas imports last year, a number that will rise as LNG terminals in the United States are reopened or expanded, she said.
Focus on Gulf of Mexico Bailey also said the focus will shift strongly to the Gulf of Mexico, where proven developed reserve distribution on the shelf is placed at 38 billion barrels of oil equivalent (33 percent oil and 67 percent gas),while deepwater projected distribution is the reserve at 33 percent gas and 67 percent oil on 38 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Greg Guidry, a strategic planning manager with Shell Exploration and Development Company, said the deepwater Gulf will have a prominent role provided technological development can unlock new reserves economically.
BP vice president Jim Farnsworth, who heads up the company’s North American Exploration Unit in Houston, said his company is an active explorer in the Gulf, Mackenzie Delta and Alaska foothills.
“There are plenty of opportunities and no single one area will meet the growth,” he said.
As of Nov. 16, Farnsworth is in charge of Alaska’s frontier exploration.
BP looking at LNG Farnsworth also said BP is examining LNG development, believing it will be a major source of growth for the company in North America.
Rod Erskine, El Paso Production Co.’s president of exploration and production, said El Paso is moving into mature basins and making new discoveries by adding technology and going deeper into formations. It has already had success boosting output in the Texas Coastal Plains and is certain the same techniques can work in Canada and the shallow water Gulf.
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