Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, now produces 67 percent of all American natural gas, according to a report published Thursday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Fracking accounted for a mere seven percent of total U.S. natural gas production in 2000 and produced 3.6 billion cubic feet of gas per day. By 2015, America produced 79 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2015, breaking the previous record by five percent, according to the EIA report.
Most of the new natural gas is produced in the Marcellus and Utica formations of the Appalachian Basin, the Bakken formation in Montana and North Dakota, the Eagle Ford formation in Texas and the Permian Basin formations in Texas and New Mexico.
Source: Energy Information Administration
Fracking also produces more than half of America’s oil, according to the report.
The EIA believes that the growth of natural gas production will slow in 2016 due to low prices. The agency believes that production will start growing again in 2017 as prices rise due to increased demand for power in the U.S. and around the world.
America surpassed Russia’s production early last year as as the world’s largest and fastest-growing producer of both oil and natural gas. Today, America’s proven recoverable natural gas reserves are seven times larger than they were in 2014.
Rising U.S. natural gas production has made gas the fuel of choice for America’s power plants, which were transitioning to natural gas before 2015. Natural gas provided more electricity than coal for every month between July and October of last year, according to data released in December by the EIA.
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