It doesn't look cheap now. But it's unlikely that energy prices, particularly natural gas prices, will fall much in the next 12 to 18 months, experts say. And that means natural resources funds should continue to steam. Barring a major discovery elsewhere, depletion rates should hold steady. All the older fields were large and easy to find.
New ones are shallower and harder to find.
California's problems could be transported to the Midwest. Don't count on imports to ease the situation. Unlike oil, natural gas is difficult to transport. A leak in an oil tanker, after all, is an ecological disaster. A leak in a liquid natural gas tanker could put the first refinery on the moon.