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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: schrodingers_cat who wrote (24178)	6/30/2003 9:09:35 PM
From: schrodingers_cat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206093

I looked at some of the consumption data and noted a few interesting things. 1/ It used to be an article of faith that more NG power plants would lead to higher NG consumption. That hasn't happened. Last years's NG use was the same as 1997. What has happened instead is a shift of natural gas from industrial uses to electric generation. 2/ Industrial demand is the largest component of consumption, ahead of residential, commercial and electric power. 3/Industrial demand destruction is severe, ongoing and permanent. Industrial demand cratered in '01 and did not rebound in '02. Even with an average NG price of $2.95 it continued to drop. Past experience suggests that present prices are rapidly destroying industrial demand and that this loss is likely to be permanent. It will be offset by increasing electric generation demand as new plants come on line, but what happens when the flood of new power plants dries up? eia.doe.gov