By RUSSELL GOLD US natural-gas production will accelerate over
the next three decades, new research indicates, providing the
strongest evidence yet that the energy boom remaking America
will last for a generation. The most exhaustive study to date of
a key natural-gas field in Texas, combined with related research
under way elsewhere, shows that US shale-rock formations will
provide a growing source of moderately priced natural gas
through 2040, and decline only slowly after that. A report on
the Texas field, to be released Thursday, was reviewed by The
Wall Street Journal. The research provides substantial evidence
that there are large quantities of gas available that can be
drilled profitably at a market price of $4 per million British
thermal units, a relatively small increase from the current
price of about $3.43. The study, funded by the nonpartisan
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and performed by the University of
Texas, examined 15,000 wells drilled in the Barnett Shale
formation in northern Texas, mostly o