Natural gas liquids help keep local drilling afloat

Products that heat up barbecue grills, fuel cigarette lighters and create the plastics so central to daily life now have another big job to do.

Known as natural gas liquids, propane, butane and ethane are helping keep afloat a local energy industry bedeviled by low natural gas prices.

Emphasizing the upside

Energy producers have increasingly been focusing on producing local gas that also contains larger amounts of these liquids, which benefit from more favorable pricing, and taking advantage of the processing plants and pipelines that are in place to allow them to be extracted and shipped to market.

“The liquids’ value greatly enhances the economics and our ability to continue to drill,” said Kevin Kilstrom, vice president of production for Antero Resources, which plans this year to focus its Piceance Basin drilling on liquids-rich gas in the Silt area.

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