Shale gas in the United States

Shale gas in the United States is rapidly increasing as an available source of natural gas. Led by new applications of hydraulic fracturing technology and horizontal drilling, development of new sources of shale gas has offset declines in production from conventional gas reservoirs, and has led to major increases in reserves of US natural gas. Largely due to shale gas discoveries, estimated reserves of natural gas in the United States in 2008 were 35% higher than in 2006.

In 2007, shale gas fields included the #2 (Barnett/Newark East) and #13 (Antrim) sources of natural gas in the United States in terms of gas volumes produced. The number of unconventional natural gas wells in the US rose from 18,485 in 2004 to 25,145 in 2007 and is expected to continue increasing until about 2040.

The economic success of shale gas in the United States since 2000 has led to rapid development of shale gas in Canada, and, more recently, has spurred interest in shale gas possibilities in Europe, Asia, and Australia. It has been postulated that there may be a 100-year supply of natural gas in the United States, but only 11 years of gas supply is in the form of proved reserves.

US shale gas production has grown rapidly in recent years after a long-term effort by the natural gas industry in partnership with the Department of Energy to improve drilling and extraction methods while increasing exploration efforts. US shale production was 2.02 trillion cubic feet (57 billion cubic metres) in 2008, a jump of 71% over the previous year. In 2009, US shale gas production grew 54% to 3.11 trillion cubic feet (88 billion cubic metres), while remaining proven US shale reserves at year-end 2009 increased 76% to 60.6 trillion cubic feet (1.72 trillion cubic metres). In its Annual Energy Outlook for 2011, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) more than doubled its estimate of technically recoverable shale gas reserves in the US, to 827 trillion cubic feet (23.4 trillion cubic metres) from 353 trillion cubic feet (10.0 trillion cubic metres), by including data from drilling results in new shale fields, such as the Marcellus, Haynesville, and Eagle Ford shales. In 2012 the EIA lowered its estimates again to 482 tcf. Shale production is projected to increase from 23% of total US gas production in 2010 to 49% by 2035.

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