During the widespread US cold snap in February 2021 there
was record demand for natural gas. About half of homes in the US and many of
the businesses in the US are heated with natural gas. Natural gas is also the biggest
generation source on the US power grid by far. The American Gas Association
said 151.7 Bcf of natural gas was delivered on Sunday, Feb. 14, and 149.8 Bcf
was delivered on Monday, Feb 15, setting a record for demand over the two-day
period. Monday was the second highest delivery day ever. It was not enough due
to freeze-offs at power plants, storage facilities, wells in Texas and
Oklahoma, and compressor stations. This caused pressures to drop in pipelines.
A spokesman for Northern Natural Gas noted that “Northern’s pipeline system
integrity will be negatively impacted if deliveries are in excess of receipts,
resulting in low line pack levels across the entire system.” Rolling
outages and longer outages were enacted on ERCOTs power system in Texas. At the
peak more than 4 million Texas homes and businesses were without electricity. Pipes
froze and burst. People froze. Some froze to death. RBN Energy LLC natural gas
analyst Sheetal Nasta noted: “The widespread nature of this ongoing polar
plunge has meant that just about every region needs more gas, firing up competition
between pricing points to keep more gas local that would otherwise flow to
other regions.” If there were more pipelines filled with more gas the
problems would have been less severe. In Texas, much of the issue had to due
with inadequate weatherization of the “on demand” system coming directly from
wells, especially wells with high gas hydrate content as it is the gas hydrates
that actually freeze. A similar but much less severe event in 2011 should have
provided ample warning that a worse event could occur.
In Texas,
natural gas heating customers were prioritized and nearly all, 99.95%, of
natural gas customers did not endure any supply disruptions. As recent weather
events from around 2016 onward have shown it is not just increases in natural
gas demand that causes low line pressures and price spiking, but also issues
with natural gas supply – freeze-offs of wells, compressors, storage fields, and
power plants. Sometimes the freeze-offs are due to gas hydrates, which are typically
dealt with at gas treatment facilities which dehydrate gas or in wells by
dripping methanol as an antifreeze into the system. In areas of dry gas like
the eastern Marcellus and much of the western Marcellus in Pennsylvania there
are less gas hydrates in the system. Gas from gas storage fields also comes
from wells, although those wells are primed for high deliverability by being
stored in high permeability rocks, open fracture systems, or salt caverns. Other
problems may be due to automated switches or controls at power plants freezing
up. Thermal power plants (gas, coal, and nuclear) can also trip offline during
heat waves, another time of high natural gas demand. That occurred in California
during the summer of 2020.
The solutions to
skyrocketing demand during cold snaps are pretty obvious – redundancy in the form
of more pipeline buildouts to increase pipeline capacity to serve more power
plants. One might call this overbuild but it can be necessary for resiliency. Due
to irrational hatred of natural gas infrastructure by environmentalists in the
Northeast US, those obvious solutions have been forbidden. Instead, high cost,
high polluting, and high carbon emissions fuel oil and very expensive foreign
LNG have been the means used for several years now to provide winter
reliability. This is a kind of insanity. Residential and commercial use of natural
gas in the US has remained steady since the mid-1990’s. Industrial use has
increased a little but less than 10% in recent years. However, natural gas use
in power plants has increased drastically, nearly tripling since the mid-1990’s.
LNG exports have increased nearly 80-fold since 2014. This is, of course, due
to the availability of shale gas which can be produced inexpensively and
reliably at high volumes through horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic
fracturing. As Sheetal Nasta noted above the need is for more local
availability of natural gas. A cheap abundant local resource is of little use
if it can’t be delivered adequately. Lack of pipelines restrict the supply.
References:
Historic Cold Snap
Drives Record Natural Gas Demand, Prices as Freeze Cuts Supply. Letitia
Gonzales, February 17, 2021. Natural Gas Intelligence. Historic
Cold Snap Drives Record Natural Gas Demand, Prices as Freeze Cuts Supply -
Natural Gas Intelligence
Research &
Commentary: Analysis Shows Natural Gas Carried the Load for Texas During
February Cold Snap. Tim Benson, April 16, 2021. Heartland Institute. Research
& Commentary: Analysis Shows Natural Gas Carried the Load for Texas During
February Cold Snap – The Heartland Institute
New Realities Impact
Our Ability to Forecast Natural Gas Markets. Part I: Fundamentals During the
Winter 2018 Cold Snap. OVG Consulting. Natural
Gas Forecast - Cold Snap 2018 | OVG Consulting
New Realities Impact
Our Ability to Forecast Natural Gas Markets. Part II: Historical Analysis of
Cold Snaps. OVG Consulting. Natural
Gas Forecast-Historical Analysis of Cold Snaps | OVG Consulting
New Realities Impact
Our Ability to Forecast Natural Gas Markets. Part III: Methodologies Get
Challenged by Industry Critical Events. OVG Consulting. Natural
Gas Forecast Methodologies Challenged by Critical Events | OVG Consulting
Natural Gas
Explained. Energy Information Administration. Last updated Nov. 22, 2022.
Use
of natural gas - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Extreme Cold and Power Availability: The Texas Blackouts are Mainly Due to Lack of Winterization of Natural Gas Systems: The Problem with Electrifying Everything. Kent Stewart, Feb. 17, 2021. Blue Dragon Energy Blog Blue Dragon Energy Blog: Extreme Cold and Power Availability: The Texas Blackouts are Mainly Due to Lack of Winterization of Natural Gas Systems: The Problem With Electrifying Everything
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