If you look at the EIA data, you will discover that there are several different versions of natural gas production, because natural gas tends to be used/lost as it goes through the system:

-Gross Withdrawals
-Marketed Production
-Dry Production

I notice you are quoting data relating to the 48 state total. This adds another variation, since most EIA data tables are for the US in total. An EIA exhibit that gives most of these is here.

Regarding consumption, there is

-Total Consumption
-Natural Gas Delivered to Consumers

If you are using two different data sources (such as EIA and RRC), and are trying to match actual production amounts, you need to be very careful to match like with like. Otherwise, you are likely to come to erroneous conclusions.

In my exhibit, I was only trying to show year to year percentage changes, so matching was not an issue. What I showed was dry production from here, which is a lower amount. When I originally put the exhibit together, I had an additional line for marketed production. The percentage change in that was 8.8%, which is the same as the percentage change in dry gas production, so I took the line off the exhibit.

I think you are fighting an uphill battle trying to match natural gas numbers between sources, without doing a lot of background work to make certain that the numbers you are using are comparable. It is very easy to make a mistake. At a minimum, you want to go back to the EIA tables and start working from them. Then you at least know what number you are actually working with.

Gail/DS,

I’ll throw in a couple of points to highlight some additional difficulties trying to reach your worthy goals. First, the TRRC is always behind a good bit in reporting every aspect of Tx production. No one’s fault…they don’t really have as many folks working there as you might guess. But, more importantly, trying to characterize the current state of shale gas development in Tx, as well as anywhere else, is a very moving target. On the question of efficiency: there has been, and continues, a very steep learning curve in completion technology. Production profiles and recovery estimates from wells drilled just 3 or 4 years would look very different than if they were done today. Back then a well might have 2 or 3 fracs pumped into it. Now 12 fracs per well is not uncommon. Not surprisingly, new frac protocols might deliver 5 times the initial rate. Also, as Gail mentioned, the shift to horizontal drilling will make for even greater changes. Just yesterday we were given the go ahead to ramp up our shale gas drilling rig count to 14 for 2009….about a 50% increase over original plans. On the other side of the ledger, these “efficiency” improvements have come with a much higher price tag. Actually diesel prices increase haven't been the big problem. It’s been steel. On 1 Jan we made a projection on casing cost increase by year end. We hit that number 2 months ago. I myself don’t see much of the internal economic data but it’s easy to guess that it’s very fluid. And fracs are essentially priced by the pounds of sand pumped down the hole. A lot more sand in 12 fracs then 3 fracs.

There is a cost/efficiency number out there for wells drilled to day which is quit a bit different than one drilled 3 or 4 years ago. And a well drilled 3 or 4 years from today will probably look a lot different than one drilled today. I wish you the best of luck in figuring out this elusive target.