API Releases Study on National NGL Benefits

The American Petroleum Institute (API) released a 50-state report on June 27 entitled, “Benefits and Opportunities of Natural Gas Use, Transportation and Production.” The study found that “all 50 states benefit from natural gas produced domestically, including non-producing states.”

API explains that, “the majority of natural gas and associated liquids used in the U.S. is in end-use applications where the fuels are used in appliances to provide steam, industrial processed energy, hot water, space heat, or cooking and other services.”

According to The Delaware County Daily Times, “The magnification of the natural gas industry in the United States has created millions of jobs and has positioned itself for millions more, officials from the American Petroleum Institute said Tuesday. In releasing a 268-page report…the API concludes that the natural gas industry nets economic benefits for states with natural gas reserves, such as Pennsylvania, and those without.”

API chief economist, Erica Bowman, stressed that the study found 4 million jobs linked with the NGL industry in 2015. “Natural gas puts Americans to work,” she explained. “That number is expected to rise 6 million jobs by 2040.”

API Pennsylvania executive director, Stephanie Wissman, continued that, “there’s a lot of opportunities to use the feedstocks for further economic opportunity.” Wissman qualified that within Pennsylvania, “the lack of pipelines in Pennsylvania was the biggest threat to the continued development of gas…Pennsylvania needs more energy infrastructure to get this abundant natural gas to market.”