Pipeline
A pipeline is the fixed infrastructure that moves oil or gas over distance, and how much of it exists directly limits how much gas can be sold.
Pipelines are the backbone of moving oil and gas from where it's produced to where it's processed, stored, or sold, ranging from small gathering lines near a wellhead up to long-haul transmission lines that cross state lines. Where pipeline capacity doesn't exist, gas that could otherwise be sold has to be flared, stranded, or shipped by more expensive means like trucking or, for gas destined overseas, an LNG terminal.
Guests on the show point to pipeline infrastructure, or the lack of it, as one of the industry's biggest ongoing frustrations: gas produced in one region sometimes can't reach nearby demand simply because there's no line connecting the two, forcing it into a costlier and more roundabout path to market, and better pipeline buildout is repeatedly cited as the single change that would most help the industry's efficiency.
Heard on the show
“all that Marcellus gas, it doesn't make it up to New England. There's no pipeline”
“we would have a better pipeline grid than we've got now. We'd have more pipelines available to get some of this gas that's being flared to sell”