Financial Times: Pitfalls of the US Cheap Gas Habit

“It could well be that among America’s current ‘false friends’ is the depressed domestic natural gas price. Prices are not only a way of settling the terms for the exchange of goods for money, but a signal of whether there will be future scarcity or plenty. At the moment, US gas and electricity consumers are paying less than half what’s asked of UK consumers, and less than a third of what the Chinese are ready to pay. Cheap gas is good for Americans now, but it is enabling a growing dependency on gas-generated power that will only get more expensive. In a few years the country could find itself forced to bid hard in international markets for essential supplies. That’s good news for the world’s producers of liquefied natural gas (LNG). They’ve been waiting for the US to develop as a large importer, and may not have to wait much longer.”