Study: Natural gas becoming focal point of global energy - WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren Ohio

NEW YORK - A new study released by General Electric provides some encouraging predictions for the shale gas industry.

A white paper titled the Age of Gas finds that natural gas is becoming a focal point of global energy supply and demand.

"Natural gas is positioned to rival coal consumption as well as take share from oil on the global stage," say the study's authors Peter C. Evans and Michael F. Farina. They write that gas will also increasingly complement wind and other renewable energy sources in power generation.

Evans and Farina say that utilities, global businesses, homes and also trains, trucks and other means of transportation have already embraced natural gas. The analysts expect that gas consumption will grow by more than a third from its current level by 2025. They estimate that international trade in liquefied natural gas (LNG) will increase by 70 percent in this decade alone.

The study finds that natural gas will account for 26 percent of primary global energy production by 2025, up from 20 percent in 1990.  Most of the gas will be developed in the United States and Canada, led by the Marcellus shale region centered in Pennsylvania and the Eagle Ford shale of south Texas.

Land-based gas pipelines transport 89 percent of the gas consumed today. They authors say that gas network growth, innovation and new supply options like shale gas are helping create greater gas network density and resilience, and improve economics. 

You may view the entire white paper by following this link

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Earlier this month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration issued an estimate that the United States will be the world's top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2013, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia. For the United States and Russia, total petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbon production, in energy content terms, is almost evenly split between petroleum and natural gas. Saudi Arabia's production, on the other hand, heavily favors petroleum.