Do High Prices Mean We’re Running Out of Natural Gas?

The natural gas industry argues that today’s shortages are driven by constraints on production, transportation and storage. Plenty of supply remains, they say, if only they can go after it.

But some theorists, drawing on the debate over “peak oil,” believe U.S. demand for natural gas is outstripping our ability to extract it efficiently from traditional supplies here and in Canada and Mexico.

“It looks like sometime in the last three or four years that North American natural gas production has peaked,” said Julian Darley, founder of the Post Carbon Institute, an Oregon-based environmental think tank. “By the end of 2006, I think we’ll be completely sure.”
Newhouse News Service