US boosts natural gas output

OECD Europe natural gas trends

OECD Europe natural gas consumption growth outpaced production growth by 2%/y between 1995 and 2005. This pushed net imports to 8.2 trillion ft³ in 2005 and to a peak of 8.9 trillion ft³ in 2008.

Since 2005, total natural gas production in OECD Europe has decreased slightly. The UK has been the largest contributor to the decline. Production in the UK dropped to 1.4 trillion ft³ in 2012, less than half the level of production in 2005.

Meanwhile, overall OECD consumption decreased by 7% to 17.9 trillion ft³. Natural gas consumption declines in the UK, Germany and Italy accounted for two thirds of total decline. Industrial consumption has been steadily been steadily declining in Europe since 2000. Whereas previously strong growth in natural gas use for power generation had more than offset declining industrial consumption, but more recently natural gas use for power generation has been either unchanged or declining.

US natural gas trends

Natural gas consumption in the US remained relatively stable until 2005, following which natural gas production from shale plays began increasing rapidly. Since 2005, natural gas production has increased at almost twice the speed of consumption, growing to 24 trillion ft³ in 2012. As a result, net imports in 2012 fell to the lowest level since 1990.

Natural gas consumption grew 12% from 2005, reaching 25.5 trillion ft³ in 2012. This growth was driven mainly by consumption for electric power generation.

Adapted from a press release by Emma McAleavey.

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