Department of Energy primer shows resource potential of natural gas liquids in Appalachia
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has published a natural gas liquids (NGLs) primer specifically focused on the potential resources of the Appalachian region.
The primer was gathered from information on Appalachian supply, demand, and infrastructure, and focuses on explaining the nature of NGLs and their use before going into recent market developments surrounding them, as well as their supporting infrastructure in the region. It emphasizes that the region also present opportunities for new investments if developers move increasingly to ethane as a feedstock in the area, rather than rejecting it in dry natural gas streams.
Notably, though, the area has proven dependent on non-local storage to meet its peak-season demand for NGL. This means the surrounding region has serious potential for storage infrastructure.
NGL processing and capacity has grown in Appalachia alongside natural gas production in recent years, and the DOE expects that growth in production to continue all the way through to 2040. This primer precedes a report to Congress about the benefits of the area’s NGLs, which is expected to debut sometime in early 2018.
