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Permalink Reply by Mmmarkkk on January 25, 2012 at 5:34am

First, the reason you may not see an immediate drop in your electricity bills is that electric companies have to buy gas ahead of time and have to commit to term contracts.  These contracts could have been written 6 months or 2 years ago when prices were higher.  This is something they almost all have to do to ensure they don't get caught paying high prices during swings in price.  Like when prices spiked to $15 a few years ago.  They also try to lock in lower prices, but that is what they will be doing now which will find its way into electricy costs in months/years to come.

 

Propane on the other hand could be high due to the processing capacity it takes to extract it from the natural gas.  And propane is generally tied to oil pricings.

 

Selling all of the surplus gas will take either a huge resurgancy in our economy (not likely in current conditions), a huge boost to natural gas fired transportation (hopefully, but I'm not holding my breath) or exports via LNG.  It will take a while to get teh LNG export facilities up and moving plus the government has to approve export licenses.  In the end, exporting natural gas via LNG will help increase prices, which the general consumer won't like.  Particularly those in the Northeast...or as us Texans call them...Yankees!  lol  There will be political pressure from the Left to not allow exports, which will harm all of the royalty owners.  Start working your congressmen and women.

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Permalink Reply by Brian V. on January 25, 2012 at 5:59am

My gas bill is less but not by a very noticable amount.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Day on January 25, 2012 at 7:13am

I just talked to the guy filling my propane tank and he pointed out that transportation costs add a lot to propane costs.  That is the industry's spin and it sounds reasonable enough on the surface.  It doesn't matter, I am at their mercy price-wise anyway.  As for the politicians,  as far as I'm concerned, votes come in their front door but graft and payola comes in their back door.  So far, the oil and gas companies seem to know very well where the back door is even before us voters understand what we should be saying when we go in the front door. 

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Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on January 27, 2012 at 3:51am

Look an electric bill and you will see different items itemized, like transportation costs, admin costs, state and federal taxes, and more.  This will give you an idea of all the hidden costs of doing business in this country. The actual amount paid for the raw product is a surprisingly small percentage of the retail price.

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Permalink Reply by Brian Day on January 27, 2012 at 4:12am

So far, I've seen two or three good responses to my post.  I wonder how a person would find out if a big surge has happened in the production of storage equipment for CNG or LNG that is used at filling stations.  If those manufacturing companies have roaring production, that would be a real encouraging sign.  Nice to hear that people are seeing significant savings on their natural gas bills.  If I were saving a heap of money on my heating or manufacturing fuel bill, I'd surely want to examine saving money on my transportation bill.

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