About 4934 trillion cubic feet of gas have been produced in the world since 1900.1 The United States has accounted for about 30% of that total. Texas (32.5%) and Louisiana (18.3%) together account for more than half of all natural gas produced in the United States through 2021.
Natural gas is frequently produced simultaneously with oil. But until the mid-20th century gas was an undesirable byproduct of oil production because there was no way to move gas long distances, and hence there was little demand for the fuel. Gas that was co-produced with oil was simply flared (burned at the production site) or vented to the atmosphere. Gas that was discovered by itself was left in the ground.
In 1821, the first well specifically intended to obtain natural gas was dug in Fredonia, New York.2 Early pipeline technology used wood and then iron but was inefficient. After World War II, there were major advancements in welding, metallurgy, and joining (connecting two pieces of pipe) technologies. The nation launched a massive expansion of its pipeline network, which spurred the rapid growth of natural gas markets in homes, industry, and electricity generation. Today there are about 3 million miles of mainline and other pipelines that link natural gas production areas and storage facilities with consumers.3 That length is 120 times the circumference of the Earth at the equator.
Prior to the fracking boom of the early 2000s, the largest natural gas field in the United States was the Hugoton field in Kansas. It was discovered in 1922, but because the well did not produce oil it was considered to have little value and remained unused for a number of years. The Hugoton field eventually would become the largest gas producer in the country and one of the biggest fields in the world.
Fracking radically altered the natural gas industry in the United States. The ability to inject water, sand, and chemicals under high pressure into a bedrock formation to create and expand fractures in the rock opened up a new frontier in gas production. The Marcellus Shale Area in north central West Virginia and a large expanse of Pennsylvania became the nation’s largest gas field. It was followed by other “fracked fields” with names like Fayetteville Shale (north central Arkansas) and Barnett Shale (near Fort Worth, Texas).4
The effect of fracking on natural gas production is nothing short of astonishing. From 1973 through the mid-1990s, natural gas production dropped by 25%. The imports of liquified natural gas (LNG) increased by a factor of five between 1986 and 2007. However, due to fracking, the situation flipped virtually overnight. By the early 2020s, natural gas production was 50% higher compared to 1973, and the United States was a huge net exporter of natural gas.
Natural gas produced in federal offshore waters in the Gulf of Mexico has contributed about 6% of the nation’s supply through 2021. But also gas produced in that region has declined for more than 25 years. It is very expensive to produce gas from the seabed, with the costs of production platforms often exceeding one billion dollars. With the growth of fracking activities in shale gas formations, onshore drilling became more economic relative to offshore drilling.5
1 1900-2016: The Shift Project, World Gas Production, accessed October 21, 2023, Link
2 American Public Gas Association, A Brief History of Natural Gas, accessed October 21, 2023, https://www.apga.org/apgamainsite/aboutus/facts/history-of-natural-gas
3 Natural gas pipelines Link
4 U.S. Energy Information Administration, Top 100 U.S. Oil and Gas Fields, March 2015, https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/crudeoilreserves/top100/pdf/top100.pdf
5 U.S. Energy Information Administration, New projects expected to reverse Gulf of Mexico natural gas production declines, November 26, 2018,https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37593