NATURAL GAS SUPPLY ASSOCIATION

CONTACT: Charlotte LeGates

PHONE: 202/326-9316

FAX: 202/326-9334

E-MAIL: clegates@ngsa.org

Preliminary Survey Results Show Another Upward Tick in Natural Gas Production Efficiency

Washington, DC -- Natural gas producers have once again improved their efficiency in use of assets, the Natural Gas Supply Association announced today.

The preliminary results of NGSA's annual Deliverability Survey show that capacity utilization--the percentage of production-field assets used to deliver gas to the transmission network--rose a full percentage point during the past year, from 94.1 percent of capacity in 1995 to 95.1 percent in 1996. The preliminary Deliverability Survey results are based on responses that represent about 59 percent of total lower-48 natural gas production.

The growth in capacity utilization is particularly significant because Survey respondents increased the amount of connected capacity 2.7 percent during 1996--from 30,263 MMcf/day at the end of 1995 to 31,083 MMcf/day at the end of 1996. These producers also increased deliveries by 3.8 percent, thereby improving their overall operating efficiency by one percentage point..

In addition to the increase in connected capacity, respondents' unconnected capacity rose 8.9 percent, from 1,282 MMcf/day at the end of 1995 to 1,396 MMcf/day at the end of 1996. Thus, total connected and unconnected capacity increased in NGSA's preliminary Deliverability Survey, so that total gas field capacity increased by 3 percent

Also of significance are producers' new estimates of maximum feasible capacity, a measurement that acknowledges that, in real life, producers cannot use 100 percent of their field assets 100 percent of the time to deliver gas because equipment will be down for scheduled maintenance, repair, replacement, or unscheduled well maintenance. In last year's Survey, respondents reported a maximum feasible capacity factor of 94.6 percent; this year, they increased their estimate to 96.6 percent. In other words, in addition to increasing their efficiency through capacity utilization, the responding producers also increased their estimate of how efficiently they could use their production field assets.

Preliminary copies of the deliverability survey are available in the "Supply Issues" section of this website.

This page was last updated August 31, 1997