Fears are being expressed of fuel gas shortage in US following Europe -

Washington: The United States promised abundant fuel supplies to Europe after Europe banned the import of Russian gas. But it has been exposed in the past few days that reports have surfaced that US companies are failing to meet the growing European demand for fuel. Against this backdrop, a leading news agency claimed that a gas shortage might occur in the United States, which supplies fuel gas to Europe. This claim has attracted attention even while the news of the leak in the ‘Nord Stream’ fuel pipeline and the flare-up in fuel prices in Europe are being received.

A few days ago, the leading British daily, ‘The Financial Times,’ reported that US fuel producers could not meet European needs. After that, Reuters, a leading news agency, reported that US companies could not meet the growing demand in the United States. US natural gas inventories (working inventories in underground storage) have dropped to 2,771 billion cubic feet. This is the second lowest level since 2010. This reserve is 400 billion cubic feet less than the average reserves of the United States before the Coronavirus pandemic.

Due to drought conditions in some parts of the United States, hydroelectric power generation has been limited and the use of coal has almost stopped. Therefore, the use of fuel gas for power generation has increased dramatically. The US, power generation companies have consumed 4,372 billion cubic feet of fuel gas in the first five months of this year. This demand is likely to increase further in winter. Although the average winter demand is 150 to 3000 billion cubic feet, there could be a significant increase due to hurricanes and other disasters.

On the other hand, as demand from European and Asian countries increases, US companies focus more on exports. However, the total fuel gas production in the United States has increased by only four per cent this year. Considering this fact, the news agency feared that the US population might face unexpected shortages during winter.