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A new study by David Dismukes, professor and associate executive director for the Center for Energy Studies shows $50 billion in new capital investments have been announced in Louisiana already and are likely to be developed between the next five to nine years.
"It potentially could be as big as $80-90 billion, with over 120,000 jobs created in order to build out this incredible renaissance, is what he called it" in this study says Gifford Briggs, Vice President of Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, which sponsored the study.
Natural gas is the largest cost for most manufacturing and with new methods for recovering the gas, prices have plummeted, which is great for manufacturing industries. U.S. natural gas prices have plummeted after hydrolic fracturing allowed hard to reach reserves to be tapped, while overseas natural gas prices are still very high. "That difference is allowing our manufacturers and refiners to not only be competitive but to also have a distinct advantage over their competitors in other nations," says Briggs.
The study examines the potential economic impacts of recent capital investments leveraged by the boom in unconventional natural gas production in the state. It's titled "Unconventional Resources and Louisiana's Manufacturing Development Renaissance," was sponsored also by American's Natural Gas Alliance. It provides an economic overview of the Louisiana manufacturing sector, examines the importance of natural gas to this sector, and shows how the emergence of unconventional resources has resulted in a virtual manufacturing investment renaissance in Louisiana.
"The construction of the recently-announced natural gas induced projects is estimated to generate an economic benefit of over $29.7 billion in economic output over a nine year period (2011-2019), a cumulative increase of some 214,670 job-years, and $9.3 billion increase in wages over a nine-year construction period," according to the study.
Louisiana ranks third in the country in total natural gas usage, and second in industrial natural gas usage according to the study authors.
Photo credit: Daniel Foster via Creative Commons with attribution
