gas facts

been reading arcane details all day.

a few facts, just additional color on the North American natural gas markets ...

The vast majority of nitrogen fertilizers manufactured worldwide are manufactured using natural gas as a feedstock.  This industry has grown up during my lifetime and is directly responsible for enabling the most recent worldwide population growth of 3 billion people ... without it they would die within less than a year ....

Ukraine has been a major manufacturer and exporter of nitrogen fertilizer for the world.  thinn about that statement hard in terms of current events.

Russia of course is also a major fertilier exporter.  In fact, the USA agriculture industry has been a major dependent of imports of russian fertilizer for the past 25 years.

Cheap natural gas in the USA for the last 5 years or so has stimulated the construction, renovation and expansion of fertilizer manufacturing plants.  Russian fertilizer imports have declined from around 500,000 tonnes per year to around 200,000.

Current total demand for natural gas in the USA is more than 25 trillion cubic feet.  Total demand for natural gas is growing rapidly while all other significant energy sources, coal, oil, nuclear and hydro, are all declining.

Natural gas pipelines between New York and eastern Canada have been reversed in the past few years so that Marcellus gas is being exported to Canada in quantity.

Anyone with interesting, hard facts about natural gas is encouraged to post comments.

-chiz