Appalachia’s gas faces infrastructure challenge

Bottlenecks continue to constrain gas-rich Appalachia, and relief may not be in the pipeline

The US’ Appalachia region has the resource potential to quickly double its gas production to around 70bcf/d with the right set of market, regulatory and operating conditions, while US LNG export capacity could quadruple to 50bcf/d, Toby Rice, president and CEO of EQT, the largest independent gas producer in the US, argued in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. The resurgence of energy security as a driver for policy in major importing countries, along with increasing concerns about affordability, have provided a massive boost to the US LNG export industry, especially with Europe scrambling to replace lost Russian gas volumes. But after extraordinary growth in the last dec