Friday, May 27, 2011

Boone Pickens on CNBC

I follow T. Boone Pickens because his plan will boost gas sales, increase demand and by extension boost gas prices back to a range that will support development of the Alaska Gas Pipeline.

Today Pickens ranted a bit on CNBC (LINK) today. Aside from his remarks about OPEC funding the Taliban and disparaging remarks about the Koch brothers he also attacked the idea of exporting LNG from the U.S., specifically from Cheniere.

By his logic we are importing dirty oil and exporting clean LNG.

I take issue with this - First we import oil, refine it and use it, but we also export refined products (about 450,000 bbls/day) - good lets build our export economy. Secondly we import a lot of high sulfur "dirty crudes". Many of our refineries are designed and tuned to run on these less expensive feedstocks - another good thing let's use technology to exploit the full range of available feeds. Third - I'm all for exporting U.S.A LNG - it will sponge up excess lower 48 shale gas, boost our economy and help build price support for the Alaska Pipeline.

Speaking of sponging up cheap shale gas - I think the free market is catching on to the idea of converting to cheap gas. Follow this link to see all the CNG fueling stations. It's still early days, but CNG may be the breakout alternative fuel.

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