U.S. hydrocarbon gas liquids production to increase through 2017

The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its Short-Term Energy Outlook report on Tuesday, estimating that U.S. production of hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGL) will increase from 3.86 million barrels per day to 4.33 million b/d through 2017.

HGLs are a group of gas liquids that include propane, butane, isobutane, natural gasoline and ethane. Natural gas is expected to be responsible for more than 95 percent of the projected growth, and all HGLs can be produced at existing natural gas processing plants and petroleum refineries.

While the report predicts natural gas production will be the leading HGL between this year and next, infrastructure for the production and storage of other HGLs has also improved. The report projects that the production of all HGLs will increase and the production of all HGLs excluding natural gas will increase in production faster than natural gas as barriers to production, storage, transportation, exportation and consumption are removed.

Of all the HGLs, ethane is expected to have the most significant increase in production. New technology allows for more ethane to be captured from raw natural gas, and better production, exportation and storage infrastructure is being built. Ethane production at natural gas processing plants is expected to increase by 300,000 b/d through 2017.

The U.S. is a net exporter of natural gas and HGLs. To assist in the increasing demand, a new ethane export facility is to be built at Morgan’s Point, Texas. A new facility also recently opened a Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, and shipped its first order this month.