Economic Impacts of Another Drop In Natural Gas Prices

Last year, significant growth in natural gas production combined with low demand – due to a warm winter – caused natural gas prices to plummet below US$2 per thousand cubic feet. This benefited consumers, but forced some energy companies to abandon gas drilling programs and put significant pressure on their budgets, most notably Chesapeake Energy Corp.  The decade-low prices also facilitated a transition in electric power generators from coal to gas, and in some cases nuclear to gas. However, according to EnergyWire, some analysts, like James Sullivan of Alembic Global Advisors, believe that this short-term electricity fuel transition has maxed… [more]