<This Week in Petroleum 2-27-08The Oil DrumDrumBeat: February 28, 2008>

268 comments on North American Natural Gas Production and EROI Decline

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peakoilBob on February 27, 2008 - 5:20am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Firstly I would like to say a very big thank you to Nat, for it is on the shoulders of such giants as nat and Colin and the contributors to sites such as the Oildrum that I stand.

Is LNG the only thing between gas-heated furnace homeowners and panic?

Forget LNG, I was at the Energy Institute's International Petroleum Week in London last week. I asked Dr Fereidun Fesharaki the last question on the last day regarding natural gas production from north and south pars fields.

His answer shocked the audience. He basicly said do not expect much higher production from those field and that LNG tankers expecting to move this extra LNG would be redundant.

If you add in the infrastructure issues with Russian gas you can forget about LNG coming to the rescue.

"However, there's no time to be lost, because the forecasts predict an energy crisis. Capital assets deterioration is now 60% in the oil extraction sector, 80% in the oil refine sector, 55% in the power industry. The coal industry is in permanent crisis. Gas companies have to reduce gas recovery because the most profitable fields are running low. Your readers are well aware of the fact that the pipeline transport, too, has enough problems: One fourth of the total length of trunk pipelines has been operating for over 30 years, yet another one third has been operating for over 20 years. It is widely understood that FPC urgently needs large (up to $30 billion a year) investments." head of the specialized Committee for energy, transport and communications of the State Duma Vladimir S. Katrenko

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The Dude on February 27, 2008 - 9:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Read Harold York's Limited Availability for 'Cheap' LNG to the U.S. for more info on why NA is effectively stranded for NG. For one thing the heat content of much foreign NG is wrong for our system. Also check out Dave Cohen's excellent TOD piece Empire On the Edge--Betting On LNG, which references York's paper. I've read all the articles on NG I can find, shortages for NA are a much more tangible threat than oil, which remains largely a question mark due to the lack of data.

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Nate Hagens on February 27, 2008 - 10:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Jeez - I had never read that piece and was unaware of the heat content issue:

Technical issues surround physical characteristics of an LNG cargo from a specific liquefaction facility to a specific regasification terminal. The heat content of LNG can range between 1,000 and 1,162 Btu per cubic foot (Figure 7). High heat content is incompatible with many U.S. appliances and industrial processes. Thus major interstate pipelines have a heat content specification of 1,035 Btu per cubic foot, with a range of plus or minus 50 Btu.

It seems a good deal of the natural gas from overseas is higher than that range (anything above the yellow band). How hard is that infrastructure to change?

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NervousRex on February 28, 2008 - 12:28am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

OK, Amazing.

It's rare to hear about too *much* energy here :-)

I always assumed that the warmed LNG had added nitrogen or CO2 or something inert added to it.

OK -- stabilization

Stabilization is the addition of a gas to the gas normally supplied for the purpose of adjusting the heat content to a specified value. Air is often used for the purpose of reducing heat content and LP gases are used for the purpose of enriching or raising the heat content.

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chemE on February 27, 2008 - 7:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Coal availability for the rest of the world may be in crisis but the facts - for US domestic coal - do not bear that out

Arch Coal for example was selling Low Sulfur Steam Coal for $10.71 per tonne in Q4-07 and was able to get $10.82 in 2006. (Source Arch Coal Annual Report 2007
http://news.archcoal.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=291232 )

That is 1000 kg, or 2200 lbs and will put 8800 lbs of Carbon Dioxide in the Air.

To put the numbers in perspective US Taxpayer (the few percent that still pay income taxes to the Federal Government) expenditures to Victims of Hurricane Katrina are $200 billion or higher. For those who do not know - Katrina was a storm with a lot of rain and wind that caused several 100 ft of a mud dike to break and caused flooding that resulted in mold in poorly ventilated houses built out of organic matter (wood). Also for comparison, 2 category 5 hurricanes hit the Yucatan peninsula last year but those residents were unable to tap the largess of the US Treasury. Hence their rebuilding expenses were a couple of million - if that - Hurricane Katrina expenses continue (rebuilding, clean-up, housing, food, spending money for Victims).

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._budget_deficit

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