Low Oil Prices—Impact on Natural Gas and Associated Industries

摘要

The suddenness and severity of oil price drops have certainly taken their toll on the collective psyche of the oil and gas industry. The natural gas industry had been living with very modest prices most of the time since abundance really took hold in 2009 or so, but the overall economics of the exploration and production industry — and the booms being experienced in South Texas, West Texas, North Dakota, and the Pennsylvania/Ohio producing area — were more than sustained by oil and wet-gas development. Losing half the price of crude oil, with its companion impacts on the pricing of natural gas liquids, pretty much brought the boom to a screeching pause. In time-tested oil-and-gas, industry fashion, this has been called a crash, a collapse, a meltdown — you name the apocalyptic thesaurus entry and it has probably been used.