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There isn’t really so much recoverable shale gas out there. And there isn’t nearly enough market for what’s currently coming out of the ground. What’s a dinosaur of an energy player to do?
Here’s what: First, convince investors that natural gas is the next big thing. (You can do this with lots of slick commercials on the financial channels.) Drill lots of wells with their money. Foreign countries make perfectly good investors – after all, what’re they gonna do when it all collapses – start a war? on US soil? Second, but simultaneously, convince greedy and gullible lawmakers that there are almost limitless supplies of your commodity and lobby them to pass HR 1835 to give favorable tax treatment (at taxpayer expense, of course) to encourage conversion of the US transportation fleet to natural gas. This will not only create a desperately-needed market for all that gas in storage that no one knows what do with, but it might finally improve the unit price (and your stock price, too). Quick, pull it off while it still looks like there’s more natural gas than anyone knows what to do with!
Once you’ve paid yourself handsomely from investor and taxpayer dollars, get the heck out before everyone else sees the bubble’s about to pop. The profits from the construction of all those retooled factories and natural gas filling stations will be in your pockets. Who cares if the factories are at a standstill and the filling stations are obsolete?
P.S. Be sure to invest some of that lucre you duped out of investors and taxpayers into bottled-water companies and municipal water suppliers. After all that drilling, there’ll be lots of demand for replacement water supplies.
Must-see Powerpoint:
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Arthur Berman:
Shale Gas -
Abundance or Mirage?
Why the Marcellus
Tags: Berman, bubble, increase demand, lobbying, shale gas
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