gas booster: the Barnett shale is one of the unconventional plays which have helped bump up US gas reserves
EIA sees boost in US gas cache
The head of the Energy Information Administration (EIA) told Congress today that the agency will report later this week that US proved natural gas reserves increased from 2007 to 2008 by 3%.
That is slower growth than the 13% increase in proved gas reserves seen the year before, the EIA's Richard Newell told the Senate Energy Committee at a hearing on natural gas.
Reuters quoted Newell as saying that technology has "led to large increases in available reserves by expanding the types of resource rock that can be drilled economically," particularly with shale rock formations.
So far, the Barnett shale in Texas has been developed the most, but other shale formations, such as Haynesville in Louisiana, may produce more gas supplies and the Marcellus shale in the North-East is much bigger, Newell said.
Proved reserves are those volumes of gas that geological and engineering data show with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions, according to the EIA.
"Estimates vary, but the US probably now has between 50 and 100 years' worth of recoverable natural gas which is accessible with technology available today," BP America chief executive Lamar McKay told the Senate committee.