Natural Gas Market Activity

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From the course by University of Colorado System

Fundamentals of Global Energy Business

301 ratings

University of Colorado System

Fundamentals of Global Energy Business

301 ratings

Learn about diverse and integrated markets for primary energy, and the essential considerations driving business leaders and policy makers in development of global energy resources.

From the lesson

Key Capabilities for Energy Business - Fossil Fuels

A range of technological and commercial factors determine accessibility and utilization of conventional energy resources. These lectures review considerations essential to the development of various fossil fuel sources of energy, including coal, oil, gas, and shale gas.

Natural Gas Introduction5:40

Natural Gas Value Chain4:47

Natural Gas Market Activity7:46

Shale Gas Introduction10:58

Natural Gas Business Issues Part 15:22

Natural Gas Business Issues Part 28:32

Natural Gas Business Issues Part 35:51

Meet the Instructors

Michael J. Orlando
Lecturer
Global Energy Management, Business School

So, I want to just take a quick moment to make basically one observation here.

When we look at global production and consumption of natural gas, the thing

that really pops out here, at least in comparison to oil, is

that the distribution of production

by region is not very dissimilar from the distribution of consumption.

And this reflects the fact that natural gas is just much more

complicated to, and much more difficult to transport.

So, these shares are not terribly different when

you look at consumption versus production, that's just

because when it comes to natural gas, you're

mostly self sourcing, at least regionally, your consumption.

So, that's probably the, the main takeaway to

think about with natural gas, which has implications.

You know, if you're going to develop gas in a region, you're going to have to

think a little bit more about, how am I going to get rid of this?

Is there a local market for it?

With oil, that's not always the case.

You can usually count on getting it into the global sales stream somehow.

But, with natural gas, this is a bit more of a

consideration as how exactly do you get rid of the product.

[BLANK_AUDIO]

In, you see this more limited nature [SOUND] in this

left hand slide we can see major gas trade movements.

[COUGH] And recall just how complicated of a set, when we

looked at the oil version of this, but a complicated set of lines that we observed.

With oil, about 60% of oil crosses an international boundary.

With natural gas, it's only, only half of that share of natural gas

that's produced, only about less than a

third of it crosses an international boundary.

[COUGH] So, you see that in this, in

this image here, from the BP Statistical Review.

We don't see as many international trade connections, when it comes to natural gas.

And we see, probably to some degree, a lot shorter ones.

You know, much more sort of, maybe, you know, regional

in some sense within, within a, you know, to neighboring continents.

But that's about it.

But not really then the same extensive global trade patterns we see with oil.

If we look domestically, or we notice here, this, this chart

from the Energy Information Administration shows the interstate pipelines in blue.

So, these are the major transmission lines.

The red ones are the intrastate, which to some degree,

does you know, you can think of that as bulk transmission.

But a lot of it may be local, think of somewhat local delivery.

They're primarily on this chart in different colors

probably because they are regulated by different entities.

But what you notice here, in these slides of course, is a very extensive network

of pipelines in these producing regions, Oklahoma, West Texas,

In the Gulf region but perhaps, more importantly, notice

the channels, these key pipelines here, that are bringing,

piece of the key chunk lines that are bringing

gas from these regions to the major consuming centers.

Chicago, New York, over here you have this major line going to California.

The southern line going to California.

And then more recently, we've had a lot of gas development in the the mountain

region, the mountain west and the upper Great

Plain, so you see some of these lines.

Somewhat significant in that, you know, they may not pop out that well but, what

they're doing is, they've been added, recently, to connect

newly developed areas of natural gas

to existing interstate infrastructure, interstate transmission

infrastructure, you see some going back here to, to the Pacific Northwest.

So, that's kind of the, you know, one of the big challenges in natural gas when you

find it in a new place, is figuring

out how, how exactly you're going to get it somewhere.

Because the ability to move it around is just not as easy as, as the case with oil

And you, you see the implications of having that stranded gas in this chart.

So in this chart what we have is gas prices on the left

and then I'll talk a bit about gas production in the U.S. on the right.

We only have the US on the right.

These, prices on the left are for different areas around the world.

So the red line is Henry hub, which is

sort of the benchmark US pricing point for natural gas.

But then we have a pricing point in Japan, a pricing point in the UK, and a

pricing a price for German imports, and what you notice here

is a relatively tight band of prices, up

until the middle part of the last decade, and then they just completely fan out.

Okay, and I wanted to use this slide as a

bit of a transition to talk about shale gas in particular.

See on the right US production essentially,

you know, all of our gas was made up of these categories here

and then, ever since the mid 2000s, this big wedge of shell

gas is this, this wedge here comes in and it is

projected to really dominate all of the growth in gas production

in the US.

That is really what's driving the spread in prices around

the world at this point, and has driven down natural gas prices

in the U.S. dramatically, is because the gas that we find

in the U.S. can't necessarily be moved out of the U.S..

So, it's created a huge opportunities for utilization of

natural gas here and it big challenges and potential

opportunities if someone can figure out, figure it out

as how exactly to arbitrage to physically arbitrage these differences.

You know, how can we deliver natural gas to Japan

if we can produce it and make sense at a production in the US of $3 an

MCF and they're paying 18 across the Pacific.

[COUGH] That represents a huge opportunity.

But for, we're, I'm not going to take a lot of

time talking about that for the purposes of this discussion.

I really wanted to use this slide as a point

of departure to conclude by talking a bit about Shale gas.

Shale gas plays, which is really the main reason

why I broke natural gas out separately from, from oil.

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