Biggest US gas consuming body says high gas price kills industry

Dubai (Platts)--18Nov2004

The American Chemistry Council, representing the largest industrial consumers
of natural gas, has called on the US government to open up more areas of the
Outer Continental Shelf for gas exploration saying high natural gas prices
were destroying the industry's competitiveness. 

"Natural gas prices have
nearly tripled in recent years, sending our industry's gas bill up by $10-bil
in two short years. Chemical manufacturing operations in other regions of the
world have not had to absorb these kinds of cost increases. We have lost
$50-bil in business to overseas manufacturers over the past five years," the
Arlington, Virginia-based ACC said in a written statement to the Minerals
Management Service. "More than 90,000 good-paying American jobs have
disappeared in that time," it added in the statement, dated Nov 17.

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