Scott DiSavino
6 min read
In This Article:
By Scott DiSavino
(Reuters) -U.S. energy companies are eying renewed opportunities to build natural gas pipelines to tap in to Appalachia shale formations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, buoyed by U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-energy policies and expectations that demand for the fuel will rise in coming years.
The U.S. is already the world's top gas producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas. While the country helps meet fuel demand around the world, many consumers in the U.S. Northeast do not have access to gas due to a lack of pipeline infrastructure and instead continue to use heating oil in their homes and businesses.
The Appalachia shale fields, which cover the Marcellus and Utica formations, have the largest gas reserves in the U.S., but energy companies have limited ability to move more of that fuel to the rest of the country because most existing pipelines are already near full. In addition, companies have found it tough to build new projects in the region due to legal and regulatory pushback from states and local and environmental groups.
Output growth in the region, which produces about a third of the nation's gas, has stalled in recent years after some firms lost billions on delayed or canceled pipes.
But now, as Trump rolls back regulations to boost domestic energy production, several U.S. firms, including Williams Cos, Boardwalk Pipeline, DT Midstream and EQT, have proposed building or expanding pipelines and other infrastructure in the Northeast.
"We are actively evaluating opportunities to expand infrastructure," Amy Rogers, spokeswoman at EQT, the nation's second-biggest gas producer with operations in Appalachia, told Reuters.
"Enhancing pipeline capacity is essential to unlocking Appalachian supply," she said.
LNG EXPORTS BOOST GAS DEMAND
In 2024, the U.S. produced about 103.2 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) of gas and consumed a record 90.5 bcfd of the fuel, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.
Analysts expect that new LNG export plants and electric generation facilities to power artificial intelligence at data centers will push U.S. power and gas demand to record highs in 2025 and 2026 and beyond.
Output from Appalachia has increased every year since at least 2009 when the region produced just 1.7 bcfd of gas. Lack of pipeline capacity, however, has slowed that growth to an average of just 2% a year from 2020 to 2024 versus an average of 15% a year from 2015 to 2019, according to EIA data.
