North America Gas
The rapid emergence of natural gas as the fuel of choice for electric power generation bodes well for BP, the largest gas producer in the U.S. by a wide margin, and one the top two producers in North America as a whole.
BP is well positioned to help meet America’s energy needs as one of the country’s largest natural-gas marketers in terms of sales volumes to end-use and wholesale markets. We supply about 4% of the total U.S. consumption of natural gas, serving a customer base primarily in the commercial and industrial sectors. Also spurring BP’s rapid expansion in the U.S. market are natural gas’ clean-burning, environmental benefits and its availability as an indigenous resource.
North America operations
BP’s North America operations extend from Canada, down through the Rocky Mountain states, then swing southeasterly through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.Five major producing areas in this wide swath provide most of BP’s U.S. natural gas volume. They include the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin; the Rockies; the San Juan Basin; the American “heartland” (the Permian, Anadarko and Arkoma Basins), and the onshore Gulf Coast.
Our natural gas resource base in the lower 48 and Canada has grown by more than 30% in the last three years through a focus on renewal. We currently operate around 35 drilling rigs and 60 service units, most of which are fully level-loaded for at least the next five years.
North America capital investment
We are responding to the growing natural gas needs by increasing our capital investment in onshore North America. We have increased investment by more than 30% over the last two years, and we are now executing an aggressive $16 billion 10-year investment program onshore.
This program is in addition to growing exploration and production activity in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
Onshore natural gas
The focus of our $16 billion onshore natural gas investment program is on increasing the effectiveness of our core base of operations where we currently operate about 35 drilling rigs, most of which as previously noted are fully level-loaded beyond the end of the decade. The program also advances the technology to develop the large deposits of unconventional gas available throughout the country.
An example of this program in action is the recent sanction of $2.2 billion investment for the aggressive but responsible development of the Wamsutter field in Wyoming, where we currently operate 950 wells.
