Large reserves of reduced shale gas or will change the U.S. energy structure

The U.S. Energy Information Administration released the full version of the 2011 Energy Outlook report on the 26th. According to this report, the development and production of shale gas resources will greatly change the structure of energy production and consumption in the United States. By 2035, the United States will continue to reduce its dependence on imported energy.

Compared with the report issued by the agency in December last year, the newly released report updated the US coastal oil and gas production based on the US government's suspension of oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico for six months and the postponement of leases for Atlantic and Pacific coastal oil and gas fields after 2017. Information and expectations.

According to the report, from 2009 to 2035, the domestic energy production in the United States rose by 2.7% annually. At the same time, the United States will increase the production of domestic biofuels and will establish new standards for vehicle energy consumption. Under this situation, the US crude oil imports will show a downward trend. By 2035, the proportion of imported oil in the total liquid fuel consumption in the United States is expected to fall to 42%. Despite the rapid growth in the production of natural gas and non-hydraulic renewable energy, coal will still account for the largest share of energy production in electricity production. The environmental law rules and regulations that the United States Congress and the government are preparing to issue may change the structure of electricity production, and in particular will affect the fate of U.S. thermal power plants. Assuming that the U.S. policy on greenhouse gas emissions has not changed, U.S. CO2 emissions will continue to grow slowly until 2027 to return to 2005 levels.

The report substantially updated the amount of shale gas resources that can be exploited in the United States, and believes that shale gas will play an increasingly important role in future US energy production and consumption. The report said that the United States currently has 827 trillion cubic feet (1 cubic foot and 0.028317 cubic meters) of technically extractable shale gas resources. From 2009 to 2035, shale gas production in the United States will increase nearly fourfold.

Shale gas is natural gas extracted from the shale layer and is mostly distributed in shale layers with large thickness and widely distributed in the basin. Compared with conventional natural gas, the exploitation of shale gas has the advantage of longer mining life. It is reported that there are 48 states in the United States that have huge reserves of shale gas resources. According to data from the United States Geological Survey, the Barnett shale field in the Fort Worth Basin, Texas, can have a life of 80 to 100 years.

The U.S. government has been actively promoting the development of shale gas, but its large-scale production and commercial use has always faced technical bottlenecks. In recent years, with the successful integration of horizontal drilling technology and hydraulic fracturing technology at the Barnett Laboratory in Texas, the U.S. shale gas extraction technology has made a qualitative breakthrough, the mining costs have been greatly reduced, and U.S. shale gas production has entered Fast lane. Technological advances, government support, and the soaring prices of crude oil and natural gas in the world have made the development and development of shale gas in the US even more robust. This will undoubtedly also have an important impact on the global economic and energy geopolitical landscape.