THE LINE PIPE MARKET

摘要

The natural gas world is truly aconundrum. Not so long ago we had close to1,500 rigs drilling for gas and we were buildingor considering LNG import terminals. Today,because of associated gas production, thereare 165 rigs drilling for gas, LNG EXPORTSare ramping up, a significant amount of gas isgoing to Mexico via pipeline and, finally, there’sthis; in North Dakota in June, 24% of thenatural gas produced was flared due topipeline and processing shutdowns. WhileJune was an anomoly of sorts, flared gasaveraged about 18% of production for the last6 months. The state regulation calls for a maxof 12%. In Texas, a recent RRC decisionmade news for two reasons. First, one of theCommissioners dissented on a flaring requestwhich has apparently never happened. Inaddition, the flaring permit was granted forwells that were connected to a pipeline but thecompany stated that gas would be uneconomical to ship. Clearly, more demandand pipeline and processing capacity areneeded to capitalize on this abundantresource.