Farmers and fracking come under fire for water depletion from the US aquifer system. Mirroring sentiments about the all important Murray-Darling river system in South East Australia. This was an intense concern prior to the drought breaking. John Kemp from Thomson Reuters recent column is worth reading for a US context and its own drought conditions.

He writes U.S. farmers are withdrawing unsustainable volumes of groundwater to irrigate their crops,resulting in an accelerating decline in aquifers across the
central and western United States, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Groundwater resources have shrunk by 1,000 cubic kilometres since 1900 as the amount of water extracted exceeds the rate at which aquifers are recharged, according to “Groundwater depletion in the United States.” This about double the total amount of water contained in Lake Erie.

And depletion rates are accelerating. The 40 aquifers in the USGS survey declined almost 200 cubic kilometres between 2000 and 2008 alone - a record rate of 24 cubic kilometres per year, which is more than double the 11 cubic km per year lost in the 1990s and the 12 cubic km lost each year in the 1980s.

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Natty Gas futures popped dramatically as stopped went off through $4.00. Earlier the weekly rig counts were released. However the market seems to be short from yesterday's EIA.

* Gas-directed rig count climbs slightly from 18-year low
* Horizontal rigs fall for first time in three weeks
* Oil rig count drops after three straight weekly gains

Reuters reported the number of rigs drilling fornatural gas in the United States rose this week by four afterposting an 18-year low the previous week, stirring concerns that some producers were wading in to dry gas drilling.

The gas-directed rig count edged up to 354 this week aftersliding to 350 the previous week, its lowest since June 1995, data from Houston-based Baker Hughes showed on Friday.

Producers have mostly been curbing dry-gas drilling in favor of more profitable oil and liquids-rich plays such as Eagle Ford in Texas and Marcellus in Appalachia.

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Natural gas has fallen over 50 cents from this wave high. That is a correction 12.6% of since the last EIA report missed on the bearish side.

Range of 4.4570 to 3.8950 on this down wave.
Majority since last EIA report

- U.S. natgas storage seen up 83 bcf in
- Injection Reuters estimates range from 69 bcf to 94 bcf
- Median build in the Reuters poll is 85 bcf

The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its gas storage data for the week ended May 3 on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT).

Historically utilities stockpile natural gas from April through October. Withdrawals are from November through March to help meet peak winter heating demand.


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A U.S. Geological Survey shows that the Bakken Formation and Three Forks Formation, combined have an estimated 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered oil. They also determined the oil as technically recoverable oil. more than double the previous estimate, from 2008.

Bakken and Three Forks also estimated to contain an average of 6.7 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 0.53 billion barrels of undiscovered,
technically recoverable natural gas liquids.

These estimates have almost tripled from 2008.

The Three Forks Formation is located in the southern edge of North Dakota.

Three Forks is where the majority of estimates are increased from. This is because the fuels have now become economically recoverable.

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U.S. Energy Information Administration said Gross natural gas production in the lower 48 U.S. states in February climbed 1.3 percent from upwardly revised January output.

This was the first monthly gain in three months

Natural gas #futures initially fell 3 cents on the release but have since rebounded to where they were before the news dropped at $NG 4.353.

Lower 48 "wet" gas output in February totaled 73.22 billion cubic feet per day, up from revised January output of 72.30 bcfd, the EIA said in its Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production Report.

The EIA's previous estimate for January was 72.10 bcfd.


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