Challenges remain for bumping up Appalachian NGL demand

摘要

natural gas liquids demand growth would relieve the pain of low gasprices, but significant roadblocks remain to getting to market the bulkof NGLs produced in the basin.Appalachia’s production of NGLs - including ethane, propane andbutane - has increased significantly in recent years, along with therise of gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales. The USDepartment of Energy projects Appalachian Basin ethane productionwill surge to 640,000 b/d by 2025, more than 20 times 2013 levels.Historically, ethane sales in the Northeast have been dominated bycontracted deals between producers and buyers, driven by theproducers’ need to recover the ethane in order to bring their gas towithin pipeline specifications, according to S&P Global Analytics. Thecontracts tended to be advantageous for buyers because of thegenerally low gas prices in Appalachia.