Former CEO of Shell boosts natural gas use

From USGasVehicles.com

April 16, 2013. John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil Co, said the natural gas and oil industry can solve most of the nation's ills, at the 92nd Annual Gas Processors Association Convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Instead of fighting the politicians, the corporations or the environmentalists, the Republicans or the Democrats, the Red States or the Blue over what's wrong with the country, the U.S. just needs to produce more energy at home, starting with natural gas. Developing domestic gas resources can boost gross domestic product by 5% a year for the next 40 years, creating more jobs and powering the economy.

"Let's just produce more natural gas because we have it, because we can, because it's American productivity going to work. American workers going to their jobs, buying more things in this economy."

"We know what it takes to produce 70 Bcf/d [Billion Cubic Feet Per Day], where we are now. Why stop there? Let's set a target of a minimum of 100 Bcf/d. What would that mean to you? It's a realistic number, given the trillions of cubic feet that we know are available to us..."

Need higher prices to produce more gas? No problem, said Hofmeister.

"Imagine a world that craves natural gas. Let's start with the transportation vehicle market here at home." If the United States were able to eliminate 5 million b/d of imported oil and replace it with U.S.-grown natural gas, "we kiss OPEC goodbye and say, with all due respect, you have extorted enough money from American pocketbooks..."

Natural gas then would constitute "roughly one-third of the transport fuel that we would use every day in this country," with 12-13 Bcf/d used for compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for trucking and trains.

"Don't stop there," Hofmeister said. "LNG and CNG would be a whole new market nationwide that doesn't exist today. There are 250 million vehicles out there on the highways today. Over the course of the coming years they can be replaced as they retire with vehicles with flex-fuel engines, which can accept alcohol made from natural gas just as well as oil."

Hofmeister, who retired from Shell in 2008, has founded Citizens for Affordable Energy, and last week joined the Fuel Freedom Foundation Advisory Board.