Chart of the Day

The liberalization of U.S. natural gas production and distribution began in 1978. By 1992, virtually all price controls had been removed. So what has deregulation accomplished? The January 12th Bloomberg News answers:

The U.S. overtook Russia as the world’s largest natural-gas producer last year as U.S. suppliers tapped unconventional resources while demand in Russia plunged amid the country’s worst economic decline on record.

U.S. output in January through October advanced 3.9 percent from a year earlier to 18.3 trillion cubic feet (519 billion cubic meters), according to the latest Department of Energy data. Russian output, about four-fifths of which comes from state-run OAO Gazprom, plunged 17 percent in the period to 462 billion cubic meters.

"Minimal hurricane disruptions and significant growth in production from onshore shale basins have contributed to the increase in domestic supply," the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency said on its Web site last month.

The figures for U.S. natural gas production in the 30 years since deregulation started:


source: NOfP chart via EIA data

Think how much more could come were the U.S. to allow extraction from currently excluded domestic and off-shore areas. Additional evidence that the free market itself will overcome fears for "peak oil."

(via Carpe Diem)