See: "Natural Gas: Buy the Chemical Companies that Use the Stuff (HUN; MEOH)".
From Forbes:
Andrew Liveris, chief executive of Dow Chemical, spoke today at the CERAweek conference in Houston about the impact that America’s newfound wealth of shale gas is having on his business and how it can drive growth across the nation. He urged the U.S. to set a national energy policy that limits exports of gas in the form of LNG.You'll note that Mr. Liveris doesn't actually give two shits about the U.S., see the 'preferential expansion' bit, he just wants the cheapest feedstock and appears to be willing to use the force of U.S. law (via hislobbyists) to get it.
Cheap, plentiful gas from shale reservoirs is a real boon for Dow, which uses the energy equivalent of 850,000 barrels of oil per day, mostly as feedstock for its chemicals and plastics.
With the proving up of America’s shale gas reserves, Liveris said Dow has begun investing in the U.S. again, set to build its first new ethane cracker here in a decade and eager to “refresh” its $40 billion in U.S. assets.
That’s a shift in strategy after Dow’s many years of preferential expansion overseas in cheap-energy countries like Saudi Arabia (where last year Dow announced the Sadara chemical complex joint venture with Saudi Aramco).
Yet Liveris cautioned that America’s industrial advantages of cheap, plentiful gas could disappear without the formation of a coherent national energy policy. What he’s particularly keyed in on is the possibility of importing gas in the form of LNG. “We’re all for exporting natural gas,” he said. “We just want to see it exported in solid form instead of liquid form.”
He explained that exporting products made from natural gas, such as plastics, fertilizers and other chemicals would generate eight times more value for the U.S. economy than just exporting the LNG alone.....MORE
