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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on January 9, 2012 at 4:10

Les, IMO Big Oil has not pushed natural gas as a primary objective with it's full lobby effort until relatively recently.  The advent of shale gas is moving them in that direction.  Warren Buffet sited coal transport earnings as one of the primary reasons for buying BNSF.  And BSNF delivers that coal to multiple utilities in the SE. Until quite recently all the reports on energy policy negotiations in Congress have noted the conspicuous absence of natural gas advocates.  The quote that drove that home was by a Congressional aid who made a point of characterizing the natural gas lobby with the comment that "if you're not at the table, you're on the menu".

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Permalink Reply by Les Bamburg on January 9, 2012 at 8:42

Skip, there is really no such thing as Big Oil in the US as the companies have been Big Gas for a long time.  Their lobby efforts had been focused on production issues (natural gas and oil) in the US in the past because most legislature was in that arena and the natural gas market was growing at an adequate pace.

 

Most of the large utilities in the Southeast are part of the Southern Companies.  Other utilities may use some coal but are not necessarily part of the Coal Lobby.     

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