"Obviously the shift to gas and the need for large amounts of gas in the United States is going to be a major focus of attention on the part of producers"
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Andrew Gould, the longtime leader of Schlumberger, captures a structural pivot in U.S. energy: as power generators, manufacturers, and consumers lean toward natural gas, producers inevitably shift their capital, technology, and strategy to meet that demand. The drivers are both economic and regulatory. Cheap, abundant gas unlocked by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing undercut coal in electricity markets; environmental rules targeted coal emissions; and gas offered a flexible, dispatchable fuel that fit the grid better than coal in a world gradually adding intermittent renewables.
For producers, a focus of attention means deploying rigs, people, and dollars into gas-rich shale plays such as the Marcellus, Haynesville, and Barnett, and optimizing liquids-rich basins where associated gas flows alongside oil. It means advancing subsurface imaging, completion design, and data analytics to push down breakeven costs and stabilize output. It also means heavy midstream build-out: pipelines, gathering systems, processing plants, and storage to move molecules from wellheads to power plants, industrial users, and eventually LNG export terminals on the Gulf Coast.
The statement anticipates how the United States would move from a presumed long-term gas importer to a pivotal exporter, tying domestic prices more tightly to global balances. That creates opportunity and risk. Producers benefit from scale and market depth but face exposure to price volatility, regional bottlenecks, and policy shifts. Environmental scrutiny grows with methane leakage concerns, water use, and community impacts, forcing producers to adopt tighter monitoring and lower-emission practices to defend natural gas’s bridge-fuel narrative.
The broader context is a reordering of the energy system rather than a short-term bet. Gas demand in power and petrochemicals, its role in winter heating, and its complementarity with wind and solar keep it central, even as decarbonization accelerates. Gould’s observation points to a decade-spanning reallocation of attention and investment across the upstream, midstream, and service sectors, reshaping markets, infrastructure, and the competitive landscape of energy.
For producers, a focus of attention means deploying rigs, people, and dollars into gas-rich shale plays such as the Marcellus, Haynesville, and Barnett, and optimizing liquids-rich basins where associated gas flows alongside oil. It means advancing subsurface imaging, completion design, and data analytics to push down breakeven costs and stabilize output. It also means heavy midstream build-out: pipelines, gathering systems, processing plants, and storage to move molecules from wellheads to power plants, industrial users, and eventually LNG export terminals on the Gulf Coast.
The statement anticipates how the United States would move from a presumed long-term gas importer to a pivotal exporter, tying domestic prices more tightly to global balances. That creates opportunity and risk. Producers benefit from scale and market depth but face exposure to price volatility, regional bottlenecks, and policy shifts. Environmental scrutiny grows with methane leakage concerns, water use, and community impacts, forcing producers to adopt tighter monitoring and lower-emission practices to defend natural gas’s bridge-fuel narrative.
The broader context is a reordering of the energy system rather than a short-term bet. Gas demand in power and petrochemicals, its role in winter heating, and its complementarity with wind and solar keep it central, even as decarbonization accelerates. Gould’s observation points to a decade-spanning reallocation of attention and investment across the upstream, midstream, and service sectors, reshaping markets, infrastructure, and the competitive landscape of energy.
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| Topic | Business |
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