The Colorado-based Potential Gas Committee (PGC) has released its biennial report, analyzing potential resources for domestic natural gas in the US. According to the committee’s assessment, the U.S. currently has a total potential gas supply of 2,074 trillion cubic feet, up 35 percent from the last estimated released in 2007. The U.S. currently uses about 23 TCF of natural gas per year. The new resource base figure represents the highest estimate of natural gas supply ever reported since the Committee began reporting 44 years ago. The report follows several other major reports concerning increased natural gas supplies.
The Potential Gas Committee report includes estimates of what it believes to be technically recoverable natural gas. The estimate of technically recoverable gas is then combined with the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s proved natural gas reserves. Of the 2,074 Tcf of natural gas supply, 238 Tcf are proved reserves and 1,836 Tcf are technically recoverable. PGC reports that shale-gas accounts for 616 Tcf or 33 percent of technically recoverable natural gas.
John B. Curtis, a geology professor at the Colorado School of Mines and director of the Potential Gas Agency, which provides guidance and technical assistance to the PGC, commented on shale gas estimates. “Our knowledge of the geological endowment of technically recoverable gas continues to improve with each assessment,” said Curtis. “Furthermore, new and advanced exploration, well drilling and completion technologies are allowing us increasingly better access to domestic gas resources, especially unconventional gas which, not all that long ago, was considerable impractical or uneconomical to pursue,” he said.
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