GLOBAL MARKETS UPENDED
Conoco and its U.S. peers have sharply ramped up natural gas production in the past decade, using hydraulic fracturing technology to tap shale fields in Texas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
The United States is also boosting export capacity. LNG facilities from Cheniere Energy Inc, Tellurian Inc and others are either operating or planned across the U.S. Gulf Coast.
“What the U.S. has done for the world with shale gas is given another form of affordable, competitive energy that can be relied upon,†said Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s CEO, said at the conference.
Cheniere, one of the largest exporters of U.S. natural gas, has shipped more than 350 LNG cargos to 28 countries around the globe, including China.
“Gas is much more of a global market than it used to be,†Dan Yergin, an energy economist and IHS Markit vice chairman, said at the conference this week.
The ramp-up in U.S. shale gas production coincides with a demand spike from power producers, with coal-fired generation increasingly anathema across the developing world. Industry executives have aggressively touted gas as a way to increase access to affordable electricity and limit greenhouse gas emissions.
“This shale gale has boosted the U.S. economy and transformed markets around the world,†Darren Woods, CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp, said at the conference.
Exxon has the most drilling rigs operating in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the second-largest U.S. gas producing region. By 2025, the company wants to more than triple its Permian output to more than 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Rising U.S. output has not gone unnoticed by major consumers around the world, with South Korea, China and others eager for stable fuel sources.
“There’s going to be a big difference in the way the global gas market works in the future compared to how it’s worked in the past,†said Rusty Braziel of RBN Energy consultancy.
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