The oil and gas service industry infrastructure suffered severally during the last price downturn. Now that the prices have rebounded and the demand for natural gas is increasing due to the new combined cycle electric generation plants, drilling for natural gas has again become an imperative issue facing the United States energy picture. The response from many of the participants was that prices were high because of the low supply of natural gas.
Natural gas is a market commodity and responds to the basic supply and demand equation.
With the downturn of production and the increase in demand, supply is having a hard time keeping up with demand. The solution to this problem is to increase supply, thus the need to drill more wells. More wells in turn results in the need for more drilling rigs and skilled labor. I have worked on this issue for a long time and believe that this training program is needed more now than ever before due to the increase in energy demand. Railroad Commissioner Charles Matthews was elected to the Commission in 1994 and is the current senior member.