Originally published in 1983, Broadman and Montgomery present an agenda for further research into deregulated natural gas markets by relating natural gas production, transmission and distribution with the economic function of contracts and local distribution companies. This work raises fundamental issues that could arise with the deregulation of the natural gas industry and outlines analytical methods that could be used to predict any problems that might arise and possible changes to policy. This title is of interest to students of Environmental Studies and professionals.

divOver the past six decades federal regulatory agencies have attempted different strategies to regulate the natural gas industry in the United States. All have been unsuccessful, resulting in nationwide gas shortages or massive gas surpluses and costing the nation scores of billions of dollars. In addition, partial deregulation has led the regulatory agency to become more involved in controlling individual transactions among gas producers, distributors, and consumers. In this important book, Paul MacAvoy demonstrates that no affected group has gained from these experiments in public control and that all participants would gain from complete deregulation. Although losses have declined with partial deregulation in recent years, current regulatory practices still limit the growth of supply through the transmission system. MacAvoy’s history of the regulation of natural gas is a cautionary tale for other natural resource or network industries that are regulated or are about to be regulated. /DIV

This book offers the first set of quantitative analyses of the results of deregulation of the gas wellhead process coupled with partial deregulation of pipeline transportation and product storage. This complex process ? which involves taking pipelines out of the field markets as product purchasers, and creating spot gas and pipeline space markets ? has changed the nature and extent of services for gas at the burner tip, and the level as well as volatility of prices for these services. Using econometric tools of analysis, the authors concentrating on these changes uncover surprising findings in contrast to what regulatory reform was supposed to accomplish.