Sunday, March 18, 2012

Production cuts in natural gas not working

Natural gas production is supposed to be falling in this low price environment, but that is not the way the natural gas market works. There has been a decline in dry gas production, but with high oil prices drilling and production has moved to oil which also produces natural gas liquids and some natural gas as a byproduct. If oil prices stay high, there will be more natural gas coming on-line regardless of price. The oil companies cannot help it. Drillers are not going to flare  like in the past. The driller will look at the total production across all products. It can give natural gas a low price but if it makes sense to extract the oil, the drilling will go forward.
More gas is also coming on-line as pipeline networks are improved. If there infrastructure is present, the gas will be supplied. The market will have to hope that increases in demand will be the driver for higher prices and that means power demand. 

There is nothing that will change the downtrend in natural gas. 

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