A group of senior government energy officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico has released its findings, "North American Natural Gas Vision," resulting from two years of work on examining steps each country can take to achieve natural gas goals. The group, North American Energy Working Group, was formed in 2001 at the request of leaders of each country while recognizing that their gas markets are interrelated and their combined daily demand may grow by 21.2 billion cubic feet (Bcf) by 2012. Total demand by that year is forecast to be 93.8 Bcf a day, with the U.S. market accounting for 79% of that number. The study finds that meeting this demand will be challenging. Increases in conventional gas supply appear unlikely. Bottlenecks in production, transportation and storage infrastructure-and the related regulatory framework-need to be remedied in each country. There should be some alternative gas sources. U.S. coalbed-methane (CBM) production is expected to grow from 4.1 Bcf a day in 2002 to 4.7 Bcf a day by 2010. Canadian CBM production is forecast to grow from less than 0.5 Bcf a day currently to 1.4 Bcf a day by 2015. Meanwhile, liquefied natural gas imports are expected to grow from about 1.1 Bcf a day now to as much as 13 Bcf daily by 2025. The full report is available at energy.gov.

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