Four-dollar per gallon gasoline provides more margin for oil producers than four dollars per million British thermal units (MMBtu) provides for natural gas producers. Historically speaking, oil prices are high and natural gas prices low.
In the face of low prices, the natural gas industry can practice self-help in a free market–or resort to political shenanigans. Self-help means producing less (hard to do in a technology boom!) or selling more. Whether converting fuel oil customers to natural gas in the home heating market or building gas-to-liquids plants to convert natural gas into petroleum products, including gasoline, natural gas companies and their trade groups can work to be their own best friend.
But segments of the natural gas industry, led by master rent-seeker T. Boone Pickens, has turned to the political means to bolster demand and thus price.…
Continue ReadingEditor note: The full text of the May 18 floor remarks of Senator Lamar Alexander (R. Tenn.) as reprinted in the Congressional Record last week. Subtitles have been added.
“So I ask the question: If wind has all these drawbacks, is a mature technology, and receives subsidies greater than any other form of energy per unit of actual energy produced, why are we subsidizing it with billions of dollars and not including it in [the energy subsidy] debate? Why are we talking about Big Oil and not talking about Big Wind?”
“We have been debating tax subsidies to the big oil companies. The bill proposed by the senator from New Jersey would have limited it to just the big five oil companies even though many of the tax breaks or tax credits or deductions they receive are the same tax credits that every other company may take– Starbucks, Microsoft, Caterpillar, Google, and Hollywood film producers, for example.…
Continue Reading[Ed. note: This post is taken from Robert Bradley’s conclusion in chapter 18 of Oil, Gas and Government: The U.S. Experience. In this series, Part I summarized the manifold contributions of John D. Rockefeller to a fledgling, powerhouse industry; Part II critically interpreted rebates and other ‘unfair’ practices of Rockefeller’s Trust; and Part III critically reviewed other complaints about unfair practices against Standard Oil.]
The Standard Oil Trust of John D. Rockefeller qualifies as a free market company, not a political one. The major mistake of Standard Oil in its distinguished history was not a failing of economic performance. It was underestimating the need to present information to explain to the public and critics the virtues of integration and scale economies, particularly in petroleum. (This was an intellectual problem of critics too–see the Appendix below.)…
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