.

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:

.

Arthur Berman:

Shale Gas -

Abundance or Mirage?

Why the Marcellus

Will Disappoint Expectations

]]> http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2010/10/100-years-worth-of-natural-gas-from-us-shales-theres-no-there-there/feed/ 0 http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2009/02/remember-this-when-you-hear-those-slick-commercials-touting-decades-worth-of-natural-gas-from-tight-shales/ http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/2009/02/remember-this-when-you-hear-those-slick-commercials-touting-decades-worth-of-natural-gas-from-tight-shales/#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:29:34 +0000 clearwater http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog/?p=99

Wall Street Journal, 2/24/09
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123552499920765485.html

Natural-Gas Producers Launch Lobbying Group

U.S. natural-gas companies, hurt by a combination of booming supplies and falling demand, are banding together to promote their product with lawmakers and the public.

Such industry heavyweights as Newfield Exploration Co., Devon Energy Corp. and Chesapeake Energy Corp. will announce Wednesday the formation of the American Natural Gas Alliance to push broadly for more use of gas in power generation, transportation and other fields. The group says its more than 20 members account for roughly 40% of all U.S. gas output.

. . . . .

Producers and their investors are increasingly concerned that the market will remain oversupplied even when the economy recovers.

. . . . .

Policy makers have not embraced wide use of natural gas, in part because U.S. production was declining until the recent discoveries.

“In order to promote greater use of natural gas, you’ve got to convince people it’s abundant,” said Newfield Chairman and Chief Executive David Trice, who will serve as chairman of the new coalition.  Mr. Trice said he and other industry executives began talking last year about the need for a louder voice in Washington.

. . . . .

“The natural-gas industry lacks a unified voice,” energy analysts from Wachovia wrote in a recent report. The analysts noted that that the recently approved federal stimulus package included no significant support for the gas industry, and concluded that “the gas industry has utterly failed to address the demand side.”

The new alliance is not the first effort to promote the wider use of natural gas.  In 2007, Chesapeake Energy, the largest U.S. gas producer, helped create the American Clean Skies Foundation. The foundation has teamed up with the Sierra Club, among others, to promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal.  Mr. Trice said his group will not attack coal or other energy sources, and merely aims to promote gas. The new group has hired trade-group veteran Rodney Lowman as its president. Mr. Lowman, 60 years old, previously ran the Abundant Forests Alliance, an advocacy group for the wood and paper-products industries, and the American Plastics Council.