United States Future Gas Requirements and Supply

Abstract

Abstract The Future Gas Requirements and Supply Committee has been formed and staffed by the petroleum industry to provide a continuing long-range study of the future of the gas industry. Many factors bringing pressures to bear on the gas industry make possible a realistic self-appraisal of its future. After witnessing a period of unprecedented growth, investors, producers, consumers and regulators are seeking a clarification of the future of the industry to aid them in their planning. Equally important is the growing awareness that the industry itself is best equipped and qualified to forecast its own future. The Future Gas Committee, staffed from within the industry by marketing experts, geologists and engineers, can do much to meet this need. This paper deals with the development and philosophy of the Future Gas Requirements and Supply Committee and presents the results of its first studies. Why Are We Making This Study? The industry is presently confronted with a confused picture of the future gas situation. During the past few years, there have been heard some highly conflicting and diametrically opposed predictions about the future of the business. Some have warned that this nation is going to run completely out of gas the day after tomorrow-while others have assured us that there are uncountable trillions of cubic feet of gas just waiting to be tapped. During the past 15 years at least 45 studies of the nation's gas supplies have been made. Conclusions of these studies of future gas supply, adjusted for production to Jan. 1, 1965, range from 0 to 3,000 trillion cu ft of gas. It is a certainty that both extremes of these opinions cannot be correct. It is not known which of these many studies is correct. What really matters is just what will factual study reveal. All of us believe that the gas business has a lot of growth left in it. But a more accurate measure of just how much and how fast it will grow in the next 5, 10, even 20 years, is needed. Unbiased estimates based on the combined knowledge of many of the most informed people throughout the entire industry is necessary. Help is needed from men who have a storehouse of data at their fingertips and the experience and know-how to do the job. Certainly this process will provide results that should become more widely accepted than the individual opinion. With a view to obtaining this information through a more unified, industry-sponsored effort, many of the leaders of the natural gas industry expressed a strong desire for a continuing long-range study of the requirements and supply of natural gas in the United States. As a result, in 1960 plans to form such a committee were made and in 1962 the Future Gas Requirements and Supply Committee was organized under the auspices of the American Gas Association. It later became an independent committee to permit expansion of its activities outside the U.S. Since that time both the Requirements Div, and the Supply Div. have published their first reports covering the U.S. Future reports of the two divisions will be consolidated to show the relationship between requirements and supply. In mid- 1965, the Colorado School of Mines agreed to sponsor the committee. This sponsorship has accelerated original plans to include Canada, Mexico and Alaska in the studies. Gas Supply Committee Organization The Gas Supply Committee consists of nearly 100 committee and subcommittee members. There are 12 committee members, each of whom is chairman of a subcommittee responsible for estimating the future gas supply available under existing economic and technological conditions in his assigned subdivision of the U. S. Subcommittee members intimately familiar with specific portions of the working area are selected by the subcommittee chairman and each subcommittee consists of as many members as deemed necessary by the chairman to adequately determine the future gas supply of his assigned area. General Procedures The committee and its subcommittees work continuously with private information obtained on a confidential basis from many sources. Continuation of the committee's important task and the value of its estimates depend on the availability of such data. Each member is fully aware of and respects the confidential nature of both the data and the estimates made available to him. Subcommittees met and discussed assignments prior to the commencement of studies, and as often thereafter as necessary. Each subcommittee member bas made detailed studies of his assigned area using data and manpower available to him. Upon completion of various phases of studies by members, the subcommittees met and analyzed the individual estimates and each committee then prepared a report for its area. JPT P. 43ˆ