POWER PLANTS LIKE THOSE IN UPSTATE (SOUTH CAROLINA) WILL BURN INCREASINGLY SCARCE FUEL BY BRAD FOSS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DEW, Texas -- In the dusty praire midway between Dallas and Houston, roughnecks hired by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. work day and night to drill 12,000 foot-deep holes no wider than a saucer. They pursue natural gas relentlessly. Nationally, 50 percent more gas wells are expected to be drilled this year compared to last. Strong prices and stronger demand underpin much of this activity, but there is another reason: Gas wells are being depleted ever faster, pitting industry against nature in a Sisyphean struggle to maintain a steady flow. "We'll need tons and tons of these (wells) to help dig our country out of the mess we're in," Anadarko chief excutive Bob Allison said. The "mess" refers to the 23 percent annual decline in U.S. base production. "We're on a treadmill that's making us go faster and faster just to stay even," said Skip Horvath, president of Natural Gas Supply Association. New drilling technologies allow the industry to tap gas reserves at greater depths and from a variety of angles, contributing to the rapid depletion. And today's relatively high prices encourage companies to use these aggressive techniques to maximize short-term profits. With natural gas the fuel of choice for more than 90 percent of power plants being proposed -- including two Upstate plants announced last week -- demand is expected to grow faster than the domestic supply, with imports from Canada, Mexico and elsewhere making up the difference. Imports have doubled since 1991 to about 10 billion cubic feet per day, while domestic production has nudged up only 4 percent. Regions where gas was once plentiful are yielding less each year, prompting petroleum producers to push for greater access to potentially larger fields in the Rocky Mountains, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The industry has still managed to pocket huge profits in recent years thanks to the recent runup in price, which reached $10 per 1,000 cubic feet last winter. Even the current $3 is roughly 30 percent higher than in the 1990's. "Because companies are getting more for the gas they find, they can get smaller targets and still meet economic goals," (Notice, that's ECONOMIC goals) said Mark Papa, chief executive of EOG Resource Inc., a Houston-based independent producer. "But you've got to drill three wells...to get the equivalent of one well found three or four years ago." POWER CORRIDOR Six gas-fired power plants are in planning, construction or operation along the Upstate section of the Transco interstate natural gas pipeline. This past week, Cogentrix Energy Inc. announced plans for a plant in Greenville County and Duke Power said it will build one in Cherokee County.
