Natural gas exec praises fuel in TU speech
tulsaworld.com 
By ROD WALTON World Staff Writer
Published: 12/2/2010 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 12/2/2010 4:23 AM
Chuck Stanley is not part of the all-of-the-above brigade when it comes to America's alternative energy arsenal. He thinks that natural gas is the silver bullet, pure and simple.
Stanley, president and CEO of Denver-based QEP Resources Inc., a producer of natural gas, touted the fuel as domestically abundant, cleaner and cheaper for cars, trucks and power plants.
Stanley was the featured speaker Wednesday at the Friends of Finance luncheon, part of a lecture series at the University of Tulsa.
"It's a pretty inexpensive way to get around," Stanley told a packed house in the Allen Chapman Activity Center. "Everybody's taking about electric cars, but nobody is talking about natural gas vehicles."
Well, actually a lot of people are talking about converting heavy truck fleets to run on compressed natural gas. The Pickens Plan and its legislative cousin, the NAT GAS Act - which are both pending in Congress - aim to provide incentives for the manufacture and purchase of CNG-fueled trucks.
Stanley likes the much-publicized effort by T. Boone Pickens but doesn't think it goes far enough on the highway to energy self-sufficiency.
He argued that putting 10 million light cars and trucks and 1 million heavy trucks on natural gas would decrease imports of crude oil by 455 million barrels per year.
Supply, pricing and environmentalism all favor natural gas as the fuel of choice, Stanley said. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to tap unconventional shale
gas helped push U.S. reserves to 2,074 trillion cubic feet by 2008, almost double the 1,211 Tcf only five years earlier, he showed in a slide presentation.
Carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants has decreased 6.8 percent since 1997 - without major climate change legislation. The reason behind the cleaner skies is that nearly half of the country's gas-fired generation plants were built in the past decade, Stanley estimated.
"Economics in the power sector favor natural gas over coal," he said.
Value also positions natural gas-fueled vehicles over the Chevy Volt and other electric or hybrid vehicles, Stanley said. The Volt has a $40,000 price tag and costs about 4.6 cents per mile to run because it includes a gasoline-powered generator to extend its range. In contrast, Stanley said, the Honda Civic natural gas vehicle costs $25,000 and has an operating expense of 3.4 cents per mile.
Other countries already get it, Stanley said. "There are 200,000 natural gas vehicles in the U.S., and about 2 million in Pakistan," he noted.
QEP Resources was created last summer by Questar Corp. of Salt Lake City as a spinoff of its exploration and production operations. The new company mainly searches for and produces natural gas, oil and natural gas liquids in the Rocky Mountains and Mid-Continent regions.
QEP Resources opened a Tulsa office this year that employs nearly 100 people.
The next Friends of Finance luncheon and lecture is scheduled for Jan. 13. William Brodsky, the chairman and CEO of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, will be the featured speaker.
Original Print Headline: Speaker say gas solution to country's energy woes
Rod Walton 581-8457
rod.walton@tulsaworld.com
By ROD WALTON World Staff Writer
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