Very interesting article, thanks for sharing it. I didn't think of the chemical industry impact. It isn't widely known that natural gas is not a world market price like oil.
aa2 - The price of gas has an incredible variation around the world. In some places it is an expensive and dangerous waste product that businesses have to pay someone for ways to get rid of it. In those places, any business that can take the gas and turn it into something useful - like chemicals - can get their raw material for a very low cost.
Interestingly enough - that is why there was such a large concentration of chemical companies in the Gulf Coast area of the US.
Once someone puts in pipelines and transportation and builds some power plants that consume gas, markets can move to the point where gas BTUs begin to approach the cost of oil BTUs.
Commenting by HaloScan
