Entries in Natural Gas (7)
Oil and Gas Industry Damaged by Hurricane Ike
Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 01:24PM 
Reports of damage caused by Hurricane Ike to oil and gas infrastructure are still coming in, but so far the U.S. Minerals Management Service is reporting that 52 offshore oil and gas platforms were totally destroyed and another 62 were badly damaged. Most of the 3800 offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico are still shut down – oil production is currently operating at 38 percent of its normal level, and natural gas is operating at 43 percent of normal. Six gas transmission pipelines were reportedly damaged, but reports of damage to underwater oil pipelines are not yet available.
Ten oil spills have been reported so far – three on land and seven in the water. The land-based spills, reported by the company that lost the oil, were said to have totaled more than 1000 barrels. No estimates were given for the seven spills in the water.
Damage caused by the storm is adversely affecting natural gas prices, with wholesale natural gas prices up 18 to 28 percent over the past week in the region hit by the storm.
Ike and the Oil Rigs
Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 03:20PM ;)
Hurricane trackers at the National Hurricane Center continue to update the path of Hurricane Ike, which now looks as if it will graze the area of the Gulf that has the densest concentration of oil and gas platforms. Click the thumbnail to see the path of the storm overlaid on a map of oil platforms.
Ike is still a category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 mph, but is expected to strengthen into a "major" category 3 hurricane before making landfall at around midnight Friday (tomorrow).
Expect Record-High Heating Bills This Winter
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 11:20PM ;)
Heating a home in Santa Fe with natural gas this winter will be more expensive than ever before, according to the nonprofit Local Energy. The cost of heat generated by a typical natural gas furnace, including tax, is expected to be $16.35 per MMBTU, which is about 16 percent higher than last year. Don’t expect that record to last, however. For the past ten years, the cost of heating with natural gas in Santa Fe has been rising at an average rate of nearly 14 percent per year.
As Natural Gas Declines, Drilling Rises
Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 11:16PM ;)
New gas wells just aren’t what they used to be. Even after drilling more than 300,000 new natural gas wells over the last 35 years, the U.S. produces less natural gas now than it did back in 1973. Putting more holes in the ground doesn’t make more gas – in fact, quite the opposite. Just ten years ago, the U.S. was drilling about 11,000 new wells per year to maintain a production rate of 20 Quads of gas per year – a rate that hasn’t changed in more than thirty years. Today, drillers must complete three times that many wells to produce the same amount of gas.
Despite the furious pace of drilling, the amount of natural gas in storage for winter is about 5 percent lower than it was at this time last year, according to the Energy Information Administration. If the injection season finishes poorly, or drilling platforms and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico sustain a big hit from Hurricane Ike this weekend, the price of natural gas could skyrocket this winter the way it did back in 2001. The difference this time is that our ability to respond with increased drilling is limited.
