Thus along with the loss in well production and pipelines, the EIA notes that

Even if platforms and pipelines are either unaffected or readily restored to service, the gas may not be able to flow to market without treatment. However, bypassing inoperable plants and redirecting flow to operational plants has mitigated the impact of the shut-ins. In 2003 (the latest year with complete data), almost three-fourths of total U.S. marketed gas production was processed prior to delivery to market.

A number of processing plants in Louisiana and Texas, with capacities equal to or greater than 100 million cubic feet per day, are not active. These plants have an aggregate capacity of 6.45 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), and they had a total pre-hurricane flow volume of 3.81 Bcf/d.

A number of non-operating plants with a total capacity of 0.90 Bcf/d are operational, but are not active owing to upstream or downstream infrastructure problems or supplies being unavailable. These plants had flowed 0.28 Bcf/d before the hurricanes. A number of the inactive plants are expected to be operating within 2 weeks. Based on updated data, the incremental available capacity at that time would be 2.30 Bcf/d with pre-hurricane flow of 1.06 Bcf/d. Based on updated company information, pre-hurricane flow volumes indicate that the average utilization of the non-operating plants was roughly 59 percent.

At present the US has 3,229 Bcf/d (3.229 Tcf) in storage (4% above the 5 year average).   The EIA expects that natural gas production will be around 19.1 Tcf in 2005. Demand was originally expected to increase by 3.7% this year, but, due to the high prices is now expected to drop about 0.8%, over the 22 Tcf consumed in 2004, which included about 4.1 Tcf of imports, about 0.65 Tcf of which is LNG. Note that while this averages 60 Bcf/day demand is quite seasonal.  This leads to stock draw downs being required in January and February.  In 2003 these were 841 Bcf and 676 Bcf respectively leaving, by the end of March, only 730 Bcf in working storage.  Industrial demand is however dropping due to the high prices, by about 8%, while residential demand can also be expected to decline.

While these declines will reflect a switch to other fuels (unless the companies move abroad where the gas, used as a feedstock, is cheaper) that change may, in turn, impose unanticipated loads on other parts of the energy network.

Incidentally, while these last couple of posts have shown that the situation in this country is shaky at best the IEA  is expecting that the demand for natural gas will exceed that for coal by 2015.  They see the production coming from  the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) where production will grow from 14 Tcf in 2003 to 22 Tcf in 2010, and this will then be exported as LNG.  However they throw in the caveat that domestic demand in the source countries may also rise considerably (particularly if they take in the industries that are fleeing the US because of prices).