The move to deregulate natural gas field markets is likely to stimulate changes in the way the downstream segments of the industry are regulated. In particular, because the uncertainty endemic to freer upstream markets will emerge for the first time in the contemporary gas industry, the relative...

As a result of the distortions that have beset natural gas markets in the wake of partial wellhead deregulation under the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA)-the most visible problem being the existence of increased prices amid a glut of deliverable supplies-concern has mounted about whether...

Throughout most of the last three decades, interstate natural gas pipeline companies-operating mainly as private carriers, buying gas supplies in the field and reselling them downstream'-have competed primarily on the basis of nonprice terms. Under the regime of wellhead regulation stemming from...

Many oil industry spokesmen who pleaded for a free market in the era of regulation are now urging the opposite: federal protection from low-cost imported oil. It is ironic that some economists should find merit in these arguments, particularly now that the very idea of free trade is facing the...