Natural Gas Demand Research Articles

Experimental study on sand production of depleted oil and gas reservoirs

With the increasing demand for natural gas, the emergency peak shaving capacity of gas storage is facing great challenges. The operation of gas storage converted from depleted oil and gas reservoir has the characteristics of strong injection and production, and alternate injection and production. However, the sand production of the reservoir makes the major gas storages face the dilemma that the injection and production capacity cannot be enhanced. In this study, the impact factors of sand production in injection-production wells of gas storage converted from depleted oil and gas reservoir were analyzed, and the sand production simulation device of gas storage was developed. Aiming at the two main controlling factors of alternating load and flow, the experimental study of quantitative sand production was conducted. The experimental results show that the alternating load has a significant weakening effect on the reservoir, and the sand production is positively correlated with the number, size and span of the alternating load exerted on the reservoir. By the method of multiple regression analysis, the parameters affecting the sand production degree of the core were obtained as follows: the upper and lower limit pressure of the alternating load, the flow rate and the number of alternating loads. The sand production map was obtained by combining the sand production amount of the core and the upper limit pressure of the alternating load to evaluate the sand production degree of the injection-production wells. In addition, at the same flow rate, the ratio of sand yield of two alternating loads stages is approximately equal to the constant, which provides a reference for the prediction of sand production in gas storage. The indoor simulation experiment of sand production in gas storage provides technical ideas and theoretical basis for the reconstruction of gas storage in Nanpu 1–29 block, and guides the selection of sand control completion methods in gas storage.

Which risks drive European natural gas bubbles? Novel evidence from geopolitics and climate

Ensuring the natural gas market's sound and ordered progress is crucial to Europe's sustainable development. This investigation employs the Generalized Supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller (GSADF) approach to explore whether there are multiple bubbles in the European natural gas market. Also, we further investigate the influencing factors that contributed to these boom and bust episodes. The empirical results suggest that the multiple European natural gas bubbles are mostly accompanied by abnormal fluctuations, which is consistent with the asset pricing model. In addition, geopolitical and climate factors could increase the possibility of European natural gas bubbles, where the “cold winter” caused by the La Nina event brings more impetus to these bubbles than the “warm winter” due to the El Nino phenomenon, and Russia's geopolitical conflict with Ukraine is more likely to cause bubbles. Besides, the international oil market and European economic situation also exert positive effects on such explosive behaviours. Against the backdrop of an increasingly serious energy crisis in Europe, the above conclusions provide valuable implications to promote European sustainable development by reducing over-dependence on Russian energy and preventing dramatic surges in natural gas demand.

Characterizing Hydrogen Storage Potential in U.S. Underground Gas Storage Facilities

AbstractUnderground hydrogen storage is a long‐duration energy storage option for a low‐carbon economy. Although research into the technical feasibility of underground hydrogen storage is ongoing, existing underground gas storage (UGS) facilities are appealing candidates for the technology because of their ability to store and deliver natural gas. We estimate that UGS facilities in the United States (U.S.) can store 327 TWh (9.8 MMT) of pure hydrogen. A complete transition to hydrogen storage would reduce the collective working‐gas energy of UGS facilities by ∼75%; however, most (73.2%) UGS facilities could maintain current energy demand using a 20% hydrogen‐natural gas blend. U.S. UGS facilities can buffer 23.9%–44.6% of the high and low hydrogen demand projected for 2050, respectively, which exceeds the current percentage of natural gas demand buffered by storage. Thus, transitioning UGS infrastructure to hydrogen could substantially reduce the number of new hydrogen storage facilities needed to support a hydrogen economy.

Sustainable Strategy for Gas Supply in China: Based on Foam Drainage Gas Recovery Technology

With the increasing demand of natural gas in China, its production is extremely important to fulfill the requirement of society. However, in reality, the natural gas production from the gas well in the gas field is often accompanied by the production of formation water. For gas well with low production, the gas flow rate in the well is too low to carry out the formation water from the bottom of the well. The water will thus accumulate in the well bore and the gas production will be greatly diminished. To solve this problem, based on the developing status of M gas field in China, foaming surfactant Z301 is synthesized and then foaming agent ZK3012 is developed through combination of Z301 with CAT after optimization experiments. After that, the compatibility tests are conducted to ensure that ZK3012 can work together well with formation fluids, and the water carrying rate tests are conducted concerning the optimum concentration of ZK3012. Finally, pilot test is conducted in 2 gas wells on site in M gas field, good results are obtained that accumulated water is discharged by foam drainage and the gas well production is increased. Studies demonstrate the main steps involved for application of this technology. In regard to the high external dependence degree of China in gas supply, operators of gas fields should give prominence to related studies of this technology to achieve sustainable development.

Evaluation and Economics of Shale Gas Reserves in the Flysch-Eocene Formation of the Jaca Basin

The new international outlook for the gas sector suggests evaluating exploitable reserves in previously unconsidered areas including hydraulic fracturing technology. In order to estimate the amount of gas in the Jaca Flysch formation, the analysis of geological and geophysical logs and the volumetric method have been used. It has been taking into account the part of the formation likely to contain gas, the porosity (2.65%) calculated from sonic logs with Wyllie’s equation, the water saturation (35.3%) with Archie’s formula, and the initial gas formation volume factor (Bgi), estimated with MHA-P3 software with the reservoir pressure/temperature data 3600 psi/90 °C. The economic analysis of each well has been carried out based on three options, without stimulation, with 50% and 100% stimulation by fracking, and five possible construction costs (7.5–15 MM€). The impact of the use of the fracking technology on the production of the well is about 48%. The production rate and the economic impact that its exploitation would have on the domestic demand for natural gas has been analyzed, resulting in a significant contribution to the national energy mix of between 10–20% of consumption for several years.

LNG point supply of villages and towns in China: Challenges and countermeasures

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) point supply is one of the most flexible and convenient methods advocated by China for distributing energy to end-users such as towns and villages where it is difficult or uneconomical to construct gas pipelines. This study sorts out the advantages and challenges and designs the optimization model for LNG point supply in China based on a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. In this model, the goal of optimization is to minimize economic and environmental costs in the construction and operation stages. By optimizing location-allocation, gas storage capacity, vaporization capacity, equipment selection, and pipeline distribution, the model meets the fluctuating seasonal demand for natural gas. This model design uses the actual construction and operation-related parameters of the vaporization station and pipeline, and applies the model to four different types of towns. Through sensitivity analysis, this study finds that the sensitivity of construction cost is relatively high.

Potential of renewable surplus electricity for power-to-gas and geo-methanation in Switzerland

Energy systems are increasingly exposed to variable surplus electricity from renewable sources, particularly photovoltaics. This study estimates the potential to use surplus electricity for power-to-gas with geo-methanation for Switzerland by integrated energy system and power-to-gas modelling. Various CO2 point sources are assessed concerning exploitable emissions for power-to-gas, which were found to be abundantly available such that 60 TWh surplus electricity could be converted to methane, which is the equivalent of the current annual Swiss natural gas demand. However, the maximum available surplus electricity is only 19 TWh even in a scenario with high photovoltaic expansion. Moreover, making this surplus electricity available for power-to-gas requires an ideal load shifting capacity of up to 10 times the currently installed pumped-hydro capacity. Considering also geological and economic boundary conditions for geo-methanation at run-of-river and municipal waste incinerator sites with nearby CO2 sources reduces the exploitable surplus electricity from 19 to 2 TWh.

Ammonia Production from Clean Hydrogen and the Implications for Global Natural Gas Demand

Non-energy use of natural gas is gaining importance. Gas used for 183 million tons annual ammonia production represents 4% of total global gas supply. 1.5-degree pathways estimate an ammonia demand growth of 3–4-fold until 2050 as new markets in hydrogen transport, shipping and power generation emerge. Ammonia production from hydrogen produced via water electrolysis with renewable power (green ammonia) and from natural gas with CO2 storage (blue ammonia) is gaining attention due to the potential role of ammonia in decarbonizing energy value chains and aiding nations in achieving their net-zero targets. This study assesses the technical and economic viability of different routes of ammonia production with an emphasis on a systems level perspective and related process integration. Additional cost reductions may be driven by optimum sizing of renewable power capacity, reducing losses in the value chain, technology learning and scale-up, reducing risk and a lower cost of capital. Developing certification and standards will be necessary to ascertain the extent of greenhouse gas emissions throughout the supply chain as well as improving the enabling conditions, including innovative finance and de-risking for facilitating international trade, market creation and large-scale project development.

Analysis of individual natural gas consumption and price elasticity: Evidence from billing data in Italy

The price elasticity of residential and non-residential energy demand is crucial for assessing energy policies and consumption forecasts.In this paper, using the monthly billing data of 51,177 end-users in Veneto (Italy), we implemented two panel-data models, analyzing the elasticity between natural gas demand and price variations. The models differ on how the possible endogeneity between price and demand is treated: (1) the total natural gas price is split into several components and we study only the natural gas price part free of endogeneity; (2) instrumental variable methods are used, considering two external instruments to regress the natural gas price from exogenous sources.We also investigated consumption patterns, underlining the influence of weather factors, market- liberalization, smart-metering technologies and macro-socioeconomic trends. The principal contribution of this paper is twofold: firstly, to supplement the slight empirical literature on natural gas consumption and price elasticity at the micro-level, based on the Italian market, providing a new contribution helpful in defining energy and environmental policies in Italy. Secondly, we provide an empirical method for utilities to exploit information that is often untapped such as billing invoices and technical data.The results show that residential end-users are more reactive to price changes than non-residents. However, the price elasticities found in this analysis are less than 1% for both groups, supporting outcomes found in other countries, i.e., natural gas consumers slightly react to price variations.

The Dynamic Spillover Effects of Natural Gas Prices and the United States-Europe LNG Freight Rates

With the changes in the energy structure of various countries around the world, the demand for natural gas in the world has increased, and the LNG sea transportation market, which is more convenient than pipeline transportation, is gradually expanding. In addition, after the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, the total amount of LNG imported from the United States to Europe soared. This paper takes the U.S. and Europe LNG markets as an example to study the impact of LNG prices on LNG freight rates. This article uses the TVP-VAR-DY model to analyze weekly data from 2019/01/04 to 2023/03/24 and concludes that LNG freight rates receive volatility spillovers from LNG futures and spot prices, with LNG freight rates receiving more volatility spillovers during periods of significant LNG price fluctuations; Secondly, the LNG shipping market is gradually expanding, not only as a receiver of fluctuations, but also as a spillover party of fluctuations.

Authority-enterprise Equilibrium Based Subsidy Policy for Natural Gas Hydrate Transportation Technology

The continued rise in oil prices and environmental concerns have made natural gas (NG) one of the world’s most important energy sources. As populations and economies grow, the demand for natural gas is increasing due to the expansion of the industrial and commercial sectors, as well as increased household incomes. The potential for significant increases in natural gas supply to meet growing demand makes decisions at all strategic, tactical and operational levels necessary in building new or restructuring existing natural gas transportation systems. In this paper, the multi-objective optimization of natural gas hydrate (NGH) transportation is proposed as a tool for supporting regulatory decisions. Three objective functions are involved in the formulation of the problem: minimization of subsidy costs, maximization of energy utilization, and maximization of profit for each NGH plant. As part of the design parameters for the NGH project, the regulatory agency must consider the entrepreneur’s return on investment and the needs of current and future consumers. In the absence of an optimization tool, this problem may result in unfair gas prices or a lack of investor interest. With a continuous increase in natural gas consumption, the proposed analysis examines growing markets. The mixed subsidy mechanism was applied to a typical example in order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.

Experimentation with Benders decomposition for solving the two-timescale stochastic generation capacity expansion problem

The main purpose of solving a classical generation capacity expansion problem is to ensure that, in the medium- to long-term time frame, the electric utility has enough capacity available to reliably satisfy the demand for electricity from its customers. However, the ability to operate the newly built power plants also has to be considered. Operation of these plants could be curtailed by fuel availability, environmental constraints, or intermittency of renewable generation. This suggests that when generation capacity expansion problems are solved, along with the yearly timescale necessary to capture the long-term effect of the decisions, it is necessary to include a timescale granular enough to represent operations of generators with a credible fidelity. Additionally, given that the time horizon for a capacity expansion model is long, stochastic modeling of key parameters may generate more insightful, realistic, and judicious results. In the current model, we allow the demand for electricity and natural gas to behave stochastically. Together with the dual timescales, the randomness results in a large problem that is challenging to solve. In this paper, we experiment with synergistically combining elements of several methods that are, for the most part, based on Benders decomposition and construct an algorithm which allows us to find near-optimal solutions to the problem with reasonable run times.

ВЛИЯНИЕ САНКЦИЙ В ЭНЕРГЕТИЧЕСКОМ СЕКТОРЕ НА УРОВЕНЬ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКОЙ БЕЗОПАСНОСТИ: ГЛОБАЛЬНЫЕ И РЕГИОНАЛЬНЫЕ АСПЕКТЫ

The introduction of energy sanctions differed from other trade restrictions imposed on other Russian sectors of the economy or individual goods and services due to the fundamental feature of oil as an easily traded and relatively interchangeable commodity. The results of the study showed that the impact of sanctions on the Russian economy was mitigated by redirecting oil to other countries that, according to their national law, are not obliged to comply with sanctions. Relatively inelastic short-term demand for oil and natural gas at a price led to Russia’s revenues from the sale of energy resources increased, although sales fell, which provided Russia with additional opportunities to increase economic security in the face of station pressure. However, in the long term, it must be borne in mind that the Russian oil industry depends on key goods such as drilling equipment and software, the import of which from a number of countries is limited.

Modeling World Natural Gas and Crude Oil Trade Networks

World energy security is sensitive to stable energy environment and geopolitics that depend on inter-regional energy trade strategies. However, this study uses the network connectedness measures of Diebold-Yilmaz to find the trade cooperation/competition preference for non-renewables' security development. To this end, the dynamic asymmetries of weighted spillover effects of natural gas and crude oil trade flow components are analyzed throughout world trade networks before- and after the sharp fall in crude oil prices. The results exhibit that natural gas and crude oil trade networks experience asymmetric- and time-varying behavior in response to transitory- vs. permanent components as well as positive- vs. negative shocks pre-and post- sharp fall in crude oil prices. Specifically, the natural gas and crude oil trade networks show a lesser degree of integration after 2014. Moreover, the natural gas trade network represents more (less) weighted sensitivity to short-term fluctuations (long-term trend) than the crude oil trade network pre-and post- 2014. As the other comparative result, a higher (lower) degree of integration is detected in the crude oil trade network in response to the positive (negative) shocks compared to the natural gas trade network pre-and post- 2014. Therefore, a lower level of cooperation preference among regions is proposed in the natural gas and crude oil trade networks in response to a sharp fall in crude oil prices. Also, decisions about energy conservation, environmental protection, and protection of strategic resources can affect a region's natural gas and crude oil supply and demand security.

Dynamical and electronic properties of anion-pillared metal-organic frameworks for natural gas separation.

The increasing demand for natural gas as a clean energy source has emphasized the need for efficient gas separation technologies. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as a promising class of materials for gas separation, with anion-pillared MOFs (APMOFs) gaining attention for their fine-tuned pore design and shape/size selectivity. In this study, we investigate the dynamical and electronic properties of three APMOFs, SIFSIX-3-Cu, SIFSIX-2-Cu-i, and SIFSIX-2-Cu, for the separation of methane from ethane, ethene, propane, propene, and N using computational simulations. Our simulations employ Grand Canonical Monte Carlo (GCMC) and Molecular Dynamics (MD) techniques combined with Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations. We find that that all three APMOFs exhibit promising separation capabilities for methane from propane and propene based on both thermodynamics and kinetics parameters. In addition, we use Noncovalent Interaction (NCI) analysis to investigate intermolecular interactions and find that the fluorine atoms in the MOF can polarize gas molecules and establish electrostatic interactions with hydrogen atoms in the molecule. Finally, we show that SIFSIX-2-Cu-i is a potential candidate for separating N2/CH4 due to its interpenetration.

Природный газ в экономике России: состояние и использование

The article discusses the concept and composition of natural gas, its significance, localization, production and consumption in regional economic systems on the territory of the Russian Federation. The role of the gas industry in national economy is presented, the classification of natural gas applications and possible forms of its use as a final product is presented, the problems of optimal strategy planning and tactics for the development of the entire Russian gas complex are actualized. The subject of the study is the current state of the natural gas market, regional aspects of its consumption. In the course of studying the current state and use of natural gas in the Russian economy, we applied theoretical research methods: analysis, synthesis, comparison, generalization. Possible growth points, the development of production infrastructure, logistics and the use of natural gas in the territory of the Russian Federation were discovered. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded, that scientifically based forecasting of future demand for natural gas, which has consumer value, contributes to more efficient infrastructure planning.

Natural gas demand forecasting based on a subdivided forecasting model and rule-based calibration

Natural gas demand forecasting based on a subdivided forecasting model and rule-based calibration

The Price Elasticity of Natural Gas Demand of Small Consumers in Germany

The Price Elasticity of Natural Gas Demand of Small Consumers in Germany

Life Cycle Analysis of the Coalbed Methane Industry Based on Technology Paradigm and Data Analysis System Method

With the sharply increasing natural gas demand, coalbed methane (CBM), one of the main unconventional gas, significantly impacts the international energy supply. Driven by the global energy market demand, related technologies have been developed. However, previous studies of the CBM industry mostly focused on the description of a single technical field, lacking integrity and versatility, and unable to systematically describe the development of the technology track of the CBM industry. To summarize the life cycle of the technology development of the CBM industry, this paper proposes a new optimization methodology that combines the technology paradigm theory and data analysis system (DAS). Through data visualization, three technical paradigms are proposed; Competition, diffusion and transfer. Based on the visualization results, this paper discusses the challenges existing in the current CBM industry. It proposes corresponding policy recommendations so that the government can formulate appropriate and accurate subsidy incentive policies.

우크라이나-러시아 전쟁으로 인한 에너지위기와 독일의 대응

The Ukrainian-Russian War caused an energy crisis in Germany. Germany imports large amounts of natural gas from Russia. Germany's dependence on Russia for natural gas supply has been a long-standing situation. For Germany, this situation was not a big problem before the Ukrainian-Russian War. However, after the Ukrainian-Russian War, the Western Bloc imposed economic sanctions against Russia. And in response, Russia also started sanctions against the Western Bloc. Russia used natural gas as a weapon to pressure Germany, but this was not limited to simply reducing or banning exports. Russia intended to liquidate Gazprom Germania GmbH, a German company belonging to the Gazprom Group. If this company went liquidated, Germany's natural gas supply and demand would be seriously disrupted, so Germany implemented trust management as an administrative measure to prevent liquidation of this company. The purpose of this paper is to review Germany's response to the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine-Russia war by examining specific cases and individual legal systems of Germany's trust management system.