Doc91678
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
Gas exports could bring Dallas face to face with fracking
By: Jim Landers
December 8, 2012
Posted on Monday, December 10, 2012 10:43:21 PM by 2ndDivisionVet
As the United States starts exporting more of its natural gas, prices will firm, producers will profit, big gas consumers wont be happy about paying more and opponents of fracking will object.
All that was apparent even before the U.S. Department of Energy released a study on gas exports Wednesday that found, on balance, a net economic benefit for the country.
In North Texas and across the state, however, these conclusions are more tangible to the many businesses and neighborhoods that interact with natural gas formations like the Barnett Shale.
Low prices have dropped drilling in the Barnett, which is centered in Tarrant County, by more than 80 percent over the last four years. Natural gas exports to hungry markets in Asia could rejuvenate Barnett drillers and bring more of Dallas face to face with the consequences.
Anything that depletes the oversupply of natural gas should improve the price domestically, of course, said Gene Powell, publisher and editor of Powell Shale Digest in Fort Worth. We can get triple or more of the [U.S.] price for exports.
Powell said the number of rigs drilling in the Barnett Shale was 196 a month in 2008, when gas prices were as high as a Las Vegas housing bubble. Last month, the rig count in the Barnett was 36. The price of gas closed Wednesday at $3.41 per million British thermal units, a measure of heat content that is roughly equal to 1,000 cubic feet of gas. That price is just a fourth of the 2008 peak...
(Excerpt)
Read more at
Gas exports could bring Dallas face to face with fracking | Jim Landers Columns - Business News for Dallas, Texas - The Dallas Morning News