The US Department of Energy released its 2018 Natural Gas Liquids Primer, which focuses on the Appalachia region, on June 26. The latest version reports larger projects with larger ethane production from the Marcellus and Utica shales than previously estimated, DOE said.
The 2018 primer includes new data from the reference case in the US Energy Information Administration’s 2018 Annual Energy Outlook as well as forecasts from a recent EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook. It updates Appalachia basin infrastructure developments, and includes a new section identifying gas and NGL production, conversion, and storage research and development opportunities, DOE said.
“This primer shows that the Appalachian region has experienced near-exponential growth in natural gas production, and that production is expected to increase for decades to come,” it said. “EIA now projects that natural gas production in the East, where the Appalachian basin is the principal contributor, will quadruple from 2013 to 2050.”
Appalachian gas contains valuable resources in the form of NGLs, including ethane and propane, DOE noted. “The region is endowed with significant NGL resources projected to be economically recoverable over the next 3 decades. Specifically, Appalachian NGLs production is projected to increase more than 700% from 2013 to 2023,” it said.
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