scfranklin94

Six Reasons Natural Gas Is Better than Oil

1) Reserves deplete faster than oil - generally true; depends on the formation, some gas wells drilled in West Texas are still producing 45 years later. Shale wells deplete much faster than conventional wells, but then you get 8x+ initially than what you get with a conventional well.
2) Oil/NG ratio - please get off of this; if you can put NG in your car instead of gasoline, then we would have interchangeability, but until then, forget the friggin' ratio.
3) $4 dollar gas is uneconomical to develop - check out the whole curve, 2010 is at $6+. If you drill now, the well won't be completed until the fall and probably won't flow until November. Gee, maybe that explains why strip after calendar strip has been sold the last two weeks and the rig count went slightly up.
4) LNG is uneconomical - Trinidad & Tobago's cost of nat gas is 1.50/mcf or less and then it costs a dollar to get it here, they'll do fine. Qatar just sold 250 bcf to Sempra for 2010 to bring in at Cameron. LNG producers don't like to sell at such low prices, but LNG liquification facilities are a sunk cost and the cost of operation is relatively low, so it will eventually come here.
5) Politically more favorable than coal - you would think so, but then how come in the Waxman cap & trade bill coal generators get their emission credits for free and gas generators and industrial users of gas have to buy their credits at auction? In effect we are subsidizing coal at the expense of NG. Could it be that the Dems need coal-state votes to get their brain-damaged bill passed?
6) Supposedly this will happen in 2025, when the coal generators have to buy their emission credits at auction, like everyone else. Be prepared for Senators and Congressmen getting on the tube, howling how we're raising the cost of electricity for poor consumers and how we're legislating US jobs out of existence.

Other than #1, I don't think you have much of an argument.