Assessment of costs and benefits of flexible and alternative fuel use in the US transportation sector. Technical report twelve: Economic analysis of alternative uses for Alaskan North Slope natural gas.

摘要

As part of the Alternative Fuels Assessment, the Department of Energy (DOE) is studying the use of derivatives of natural gas, including compressed natural gas and methanol, as alternative transportation fuels. A critical part of this effort is determining potential sources of natural gas and the economics of those sources. Previous studies in this series characterized the economics of unutilized gas within the lower 48 United States, comparing its value for methanol production against its value as a pipelined fuel (US Department of Energy 1991), and analyzed the costs of developing undeveloped nonassociated gas reserves in several countries (US Department of Energy 1992c). This report extends those analyses to include Alaskan North Slope natural gas that either is not being produced or is being reinjected. The report includes the following: A description of discovered and potential (undiscovered) quantities of natural gas on the Alaskan North Slope. A discussion of proposed alternative uses for Alaskan North Slope natural gas. A comparison of the economics of the proposed alternative uses for Alaskan North Slope natural gas. The purpose of this report is to illustrate the costs of transporting Alaskan North Slope gas to markets in the lower 48 States as pipeline gas, liquefied natural gas (LNG), or methanol. It is not intended to recommend one alternative over another or to evaluate the relative economics or timing of using North Slope gas in new tertiary oil recovery projects. The information is supplied in sufficient detail to allow incorporation of relevant economic relationships (for example, wellhead gas prices and transportation costs) into the Alternative Fuels Trade Model, the analytical framework DOE is using to evaluate various policy options.