By Richard Duke thecabin.net Copyright 2012 The Cabin. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Calling the United States the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” President Barack Obama has begun his push for a greater use of the fuel in the future. And his policies were on display Friday during a tour of Southwestern Energy’s natural gas wells in Damascus.

Daniel Poneman, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy, toured the facility with Conway Mayor Tab Townsell and state Rep. Linda Tyler, and he was impressed with the operation, which included visits to a drilling site, producing natural gas wells, a supply yard, and an operations center.

“This is exactly what President Obama was talking about when he made a push for natural gas,” Poneman said. “This is of critical importance if we want to abide by the pledge to reduce our oil dependence by 25 percent by 2025.”

The Fayetteville Shale gas has courted a bit of controversy in the area over the past year, with concerns that natural gas drilling may have contributed to several earthquakes in 2011. There are also studies being done by Southwestern and the U.S. Geological Survey on water development effects, most of these starting in 2009.

But the tour was more about the opportunity that the natural gas could provide in the short and long term, especially when a CNG station north of Damascus provides fuel at $1.50 per gallon for natural gas producing vehicles. Southwestern has also provided more than 1,200 jobs in the past three years, up from 12 jobs when the company began its operations in Faulkner and Van Buren counties.

The wells shown to Poneman have been producing about 1 billion cubic feet for the past two years. Jack Bergeron of Southwestern said that the wells will deplete over time, but they are currently producing about 3 million cubic feet per day.

In 2012, Southwestern plans to invest approximately $1.4 billion, including midstream capital investments, and participate in approximately 580 to 590 gross wells in the Fayetteville Shale play, 490 to 500 of which will be operated. Nearly all of the company’s drilling in the Fayetteville Shale in 2012 will be on multi-well pads, which should result in faster drilling times and other efficiencies. The company expects that the average time to drill its operated horizontal wells to total depth from re-entry to re-entry will decrease in 2012 to approximately 7.4 days from approximately 8.0 days projected for 2011.

“Safe, responsible development of America’s natural gas resources is a major priority for the country – and Arkansas is helping lead the way,” Poneman said. “Today, I was able to see firsthand the full range of natural gas development from drilling to producing to transporting and the great potential it holds in helping America tap its own plentiful sources of energy and create an economy that’s built to last. I appreciate the role that Southwestern Energy is playing as we work to make the transition to a clean energy economy and create jobs here in Arkansas.” 

Townsell said that the industry and more specifically Southwestern is having an impact on the entire community.

“We are primarily a sales tax community, and when you are able to see 1,200 new jobs in an area, and you see those people contribute to the local economy through shopping and going to restaurants, it is going to have a very positive impact,” Townsell said.

Later in the day, Deputy Secretary of Energy Poneman met with business leaders in Little Rock, Arkansas, to discuss ways to continue developing American-made energy resources, including natural gas and renewable energy.

Southwestern Energy is partnering with non-profits and states to develop natural gas policies including reporting its frac fluid composition voluntarily and has worked with other organizations to develop model codes for producing oil and natural gas, providing a resource to state regulators across the country.

President Obama is promoting incentives for companies that invest in natural gas as one of several proposed changes to the tax code. 

Tapping natural gas sources in the U.S. could “power our cars and our homes and our factories in a cleaner and cheaper way,” Obama said recently in Nevada. “We, it turns out, are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We’ve got a lot of it.”