re: Nat gas possibly headed much lower

This has been accomplished using an army of land based drilling rigs mainly exploiting tight gas and shale reservoirs. These reservoirs have unusually high decline rates that will inevitably require accelerated drilling to continue to increase production. Although the rig count has plummeted, production has only within the last two months declined month over month. It's similar to stopping a locomotive with production as the time to decelerate production takes a while. The gulf of mexico shelf is experiencing a steep decline and will never increase production again because it is so mature. This source has to be replaced from somewhere, and the fact is there just aren't enough conventional reservoirs to produce the gas needed. The unconventional reserves will be the bulk of supply, but companies aren't going to drill wells that are unprofitable. In 2002 2.00 natural gas supported the domestic industry because the finding costs to produce gas from mainly conventional reservoirs supported it. That is not true today. While 2009 and 2010 could be ugly for pricing, nobody could begin to say prices will be sub $4 for three years unless this is viewed as a wild prediction. Lots of the tight gas resources are beginning to be depleted. Companies were booking huge reserves by down spacing rate acceleration wells (tight gas) tighter and tighter, and these wells simply aren't there to drill anymore.

It won't surprise me if nat gas goes over $4 as soon as this winter.

But I'll still take the 3 years....