This interesting Sunday Times (UK) piece was shared by JL Daeschler. A key point in the quote below is that you can’t neglect the gas (dispatchable energy) network when you increase the contribution of intermittent renewables.
When wind and solar generation are low, the nation switches on the gas — and in a big way. Take January 5 this year, when gas-fired generation jumped from 2.3GW to 26.1GW in the space of a day — enough to power 19 million homes. The upshot is that “less gas use doesn’t mean less gas network,” as one industry source puts it.
As Alex Epstein has frequently asserted “solar and wind aren’t real power sources, they’re intermittent fuel-savers.”
Winter Storm Fern (1/23-31/2026) affected much of the US stretching from the Southern Plains and the Gulf Coast through the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and New England. Power demand surged, and solar and wind power generation were minimal. (Alex Epstein charts below)
Total US gas withdrawals have doubled from 30 years ago when the Gulf accounted for >20% of the US total. Gulf production declined by 87% in that timeframe.
“After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future.”
Comment: The poor prospects for these leases had more to do with bad investment decisions than permitting challenges. The company is fortunate to be able to rollover their lease bonuses into LNG infrastructure and gas turbine purchases.
The relinquished leases:
OCS-A 0539: RWE paid the highest bonus ever, $1.1 billion, for this lease at theirrational exuberance Atlantic wind sale in Feb. 2022. The amount was $305 million higher than the next highest bonus for any offshore lease.
OCS-G 37334: RWE was the only bidder at the 2023 Gulf wind lease sale. A second Gulf wind sale received no bids.
The wind adverse U.S. Administration offered RWE a lifeline that allows them to reinvest in more prospective projects:
LNG infrastructure: a financial investment of $900 million to acquire an indirect 16% stake in the Louisiana LNG Project. RWE proceeds will be used to fund the construction of the terminal.
Natural gas turbine reservations: To support the expansion of its growing flexible power generation work in the U.S., RWE Americas has signed a $300 million turbine reservation agreement securing future generating capacity to meet growing U.S. electricity demand. The company is developing a pipeline of 15 natural gas peaking projects across target markets in the U.S.
Apparently, the attached letter from 50 U.S. environmental groups asking RWE not to keep their wind leases was not persuasive (and perhaps RWE didn’t appreciate the implied threat of litigation against a deal that was in the company’s best interest).
“Profound growth of LNG is exceeding all expectations,” said Daniel Yergin. “Economic gains in terms of jobs, GDP and labor income are on track to surpass all prior expectations, while the abundance of U.S. gas means that domestic prices remain among the lowest in the world.”
“More than 45 years of identified commercial gas resource in the United States at today’s production levels and the world’s most interconnected pipeline network are what enable both exports and low domestic prices,” said Eric Eyberg, Vice President, Gas and LNG, S&P Global Energy. “Since 2010, domestic prices have trended downward even as demand for U.S. gas has grown 70 percent. The recent Iran conflict has proven the U.S. domestic gas market resilient to external shocks relative to global gas and other commodities. U.S. Henry Hub gas prices declined during the conflict.”
More than 50 years ago as a graduate student, I wrote a paper entitled “The Use of Natural Gas in Improving Air Quality.” My professor, Dr. Richard Gordon, a brilliant economist who greatly influenced my thinking about energy, liked the paper (grade of 93), but thought I was too optimistic about the availability of natural gas (the title page and his comment are captured below). The sense at the time was that natural gas was a premium energy source in short supply, but technical innovation unlocked massive shale gas resources and justified my optimism.
BOE has been celebrating the natural gas revolution since the blog began in 2010. Methane (CH4) is essentially a hydrogen transporter that emits far less CO2 than other fossil fuels when burned. Natural gas’s other important air quality advantages – low NOx, SO2, and particulate emissions – have far greater significance from a human health standpoint. (Many in the US and Canada learned a lot about particulates last weekend!)
The environmental case for offshore natural gas is particularly strong. However, Gulf of America gas production has struggled to compete with the onshore shale sector. Total Gulf production fell to 757 bcf in 2025. 91% of that gas production was from oil wells, primarily high rate deepwater wells.
Gulf of America flaring and venting data for 2019-2025 are summarized in the attached table.The preferred performance indicators are the percentages of produced gas that are flared and vented both for oil-well gas (OWG, also known as associated or casinghead gas) and gas-well gas (GWG or non-associated gas).
The flaring and venting table was compiled using monthly data submitted to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR). This is the best data source because reporting is mandatory and strictly enforced, and flaring and venting are accounted for separately. All volumes are in millions of cubic feet (MMCF).
The venting and flaring volumes are segmented for both OWG and GWG production. Venting produced gas (mostly methane) is a more significant environmental concern from both air quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) perspectives.
Observations and Comments:
The total volume of gas flared and vented in 2025 was 9.7 bcf (chart 1). 80% of that volume was flared, leaving 20% vented. OWG flaring (chart 5) reached a new high of 7.785 bcf in 2025, a near record oil production year for the Gulf.
Total venting and flaring in 2025 increased by 819 million cubic feet vs. 2024. However, the 7-year trend line remains favorable (chart 1).
Thinking that 2019, a record year for total flaring and venting, may have biased the trend line, I extended the chart back to 2015, the first year for which I have ONRR data. As you can see in chart 2, the overall trend is still favorable.
The % of produced gas that was flared or vented remains persistently above the historical 1.0% target (chart 3). Flared/vented volumes were below 1% of production prior to 2018.
The higher flaring/venting % may be because most gas production is now from oil wells, which typically have higher flaring rates associated with processing upsets.
The flaring and venting gap between GWG and OWG has narrowed, largely because of an increase in GWG flaring/venting. The combined rate for GWG more than doubled over the 7 year period, rising to 0.81% vs. 1.34% for OWG. (chart 3)
Total venting rose to 1.7 bcf in 2025, the highest venting volume in 3 years.
The % of GWG being vented doubled over the past 5 years to over 0.50% (chart 4). The growth in venting warrants further investigation.
The % of OWG vented increased slightly to 0.20%. Further reduction in OWG venting had been expected given that OWG production is increasingly from deepwater facilities with modern flaring systems.
A 2020 Univ. of Michigan study found “Large, older facilities situated in shallow waters tended to produce episodic, disproportionally high spikes of methane emissions. These facilities, which have more than seven platforms apiece, contribute to nearly 40% of emissions, yet consist of less than 1% of total platforms.”
Platform specific data would be helpful in further assessing flaring/venting sources and trends.
Gas turbine business soarswind turbine business slumps
Steve Milloy, National Center for Public Policy Research: GE Vernova is losing money on wind turbines and will continue to lose money for the foreseeable future. Wind losses are real and guided to persist at ~$400 million in 2026.
On the other hand, GE Vernova’s gas turbine business is booming. The gas turbine backlog and slot reservations surged from 83 GW to 100 GW in Q1, with a target of at least 110 GW by year-end. There is strong demand for reliable, dispatchable power to support data centers and grid stability. This segment is a major profit driver.
Milloy is asking GE Vernova shareholders to support the following resolution:
RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors of GE Vernova Inc. publish a report within the next year—prepared at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary or competitively sensitive information—assessing the extent to which the Corporation’s sustainability goals have been authorized and maintained on the basis of net-present-value and return-on-investment calculations.
The Platform Habitat fire was extinguished at 11:40 a.m. on 5/11/2026 after burning for 5 hours.
All 26 workers were safely evacuated from DCOR’s Platform Habitat. The big question now is the fitness of the structure for continuing well plugging/abandonment and platform decommissioning.
As indicated in the attached letter, BSEE had informed DCOR that their Pitas Point Unit leases (where Platform Habitat is located) expired on 3/15/2016 owing to the cessation of well operations 6 months prior. Following the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) May 7, 2021 affirmation of BSEE’s directive, DCOR was notified that they must permanently plug all wells within one year of the lease termination (i.e. one year after the 2021 IBLA decision). I’ll include the informative IBLA decision in a future post.
Although details have not been shared, it appears that well plugging operations were still ongoing on 5/11/2026 when the fire occurred. According to BSEE’s borehole file, most of the Habitat wells have been temporarily abandoned, but few have been permanently abandoned, and several are still completed (i.e. neither temporarily nor permanently abandoned).
The risks and costs associated with delaying well plugging and abandonment have once again been demonstratedat Habitat. Fortunately, there were no casualties or pollution.
With regard to overall safety compliance, DCOR is the violations leader in the Pacific Region. In 2025 and 2026 (YTD) they were cited for 70 violations, 66 of which required component or facility shut-ins. The age of the 9 DCOR platforms (installed by others between 1968 and 1984) has likely contributed to the compliance challenges.
BSEE spreadsheets for 2020-2024 show 6 incidents at Platform Habitat. BSEE’s incident summaries are pasted in the second attachment.
Neither DCOR nor BSEE has issued a statement on the Habitat fire.
Scientific discovery, technological innovation, and human ingenuity are not finite!
The U.S. Geological Survey released its assessment of undiscovered gas and oil in the Bossier Formation along the Gulf Coast. USGS assesses that there are technically recoverable resources of 343.5 trillion cubic feet of gas – enough to supply the United States for more than 10 years at the current rate of consumption.
The USGS quantitatively assessed three continuous and one conventional AUs (assessment units) for undiscovered oil, gas, and natural gas liquid resources in the Bossier Formation. The estimated mean total resources in the four AUs are 3 million barrels of oil (MMBO), with an F95–F5 range from 1 to 8 MMBO; 343,499 billion cubic feet of gas (BCFG), or 343.5 trillion cubic feet of gas, with an F95–F5 range from 103,943 to 611,703 BCFG; and 374 million barrels of natural gas liquids (MMBNGL), with an F95–F5 range from 109 to 721 MMBNGL (table 2).
So much for the depletion of our natural gas resources! Long-time gas advocates knew that geologic studies, technology, and ingenuity would provide the resource, and that has been demonstrated in spades!
Kudos to USGS, headed by my former colleague Ned Mamula, for their important resource assessment studies!
Photograph of an outcrop of the Bossier Formation-equivalent Pimienta Formation in the central Huayacocotla Basin, State of Hidalgo, Mexico, showing alternating limestone, bentonite, and organic-rich shale deposited in a semirestricted marine setting. The Bossier Formation is restricted to the subsurface of the United States; therefore, outcrops of equivalent strata in Mexico provide valuable observations not obtainable in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. Geology hammer shown for scale. Photograph by Mario Martínez-Yáñez, used with permission.
In 2025, more natural gas was produced in the Appalachia region of the Northeast than in any other US region, accounting for 31% of marketed natural gas production. (See the chart below.) Were it not for pipeline capacity limitations, recent growth in Appalachia production would have been greater.
Appalachia production is primarily from the Marcellus and Utica shales in PA, WV, and Ohio.
OCS gas production, 80% of which is now associated gas from deepwater oil wells, continues to lag the shale basins. This is a big change from 25 years ago when the OCS produced more gas than any state but Texas. (See the chart below.) Interest in ultradeep (subsurface) OCS shelf gas prospects remains scant despite favorable demand forecasts and technological advances.
Argus reports that Israel’s energy ministry has instructed Chevron and Energean to suspend production at their offshore Leviathan and Karish gas fields.
Although, the Israeli facility shut-ins will result in the curtailment of exports, Egypt has implemented a backup plan to ensure adequate supply.
There is no indication that Chevron’s Tamar field has been shut-in.
Summary table:
field (operator)
2024 production (billion cubic meters) (% of Israel’s total)
