EIA to roll out changes to gas storage report

OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2015. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) on 19 November will roll out planned changes to its weekly natural gas storage report, including additional details on regional stockpiles.

The changes are intended to provide more information on storage trends and to better align regional inventories with nearby markets.

The agency will begin providing a breakdown of US stockpiles by five regions — Pacific, mountain, midwest, south central and east. The EIA has traditionally reported stockpiles for the east, west and producing regions.

The new regions represent a major change to the EIA's storage report, a closely watched indicator of the balance between US gas supply and demand, and underscore market shifts related to the boom in shale production. The EIA has already overhauled gas production data to reflect emerging shale production and has introduced new drilling data to reflect changes in gas field development.

Gas has traditionally flowed from fields in the Gulf coast to high-demand markets in the northeast and midcontinent. But large producing fields in the northeast have changed those dynamics, spawning new pipeline and processing infrastructure to bring gas to growing markets in other parts of the country.

The consuming east, the largest storage area by capacity, will be split into the eastern US and the midwest regions. The western US will be divided as well into the mountain and Pacific regions.

The south central region — the area with the most high deliverability salt dome storage capacity — covers most of the states associated with the producing region. The new region includes Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. But it excludes New Mexico, which will be included in the mountain region.