Buenos Aires, Argentina – Thomas Skains, AGA chairman, and chairman, president and CEO of Piedmont Natural Gas Company, Inc., spoke today at the 24th World Gas Conference about the outlook for the U.S. domestic natural gas industry and its role in a global energy economy. Specifically, Skains addressed some of the strategies America’s natural gas industry is pursuing and the unique market and regulatory conditions under which it operates.

"Perhaps never in its history has the U.S. domestic natural gas industry experienced more changes than it is right now, and this is just the beginning," noted Skains." The largest change affecting the U.S. market is an increasingly home-grown supply portfolio, led by unconventional onshore shale gas. The abundance of American natural gas resources is a fundamental change – a paradigm shift – in conventional wisdom. Natural gas prices have changed as well; gas purchased by utilities in June of this year cost on average 68 percent less than in June of 2008."

Skains also spoke to broader topics including natural gas supply and demand, conservation and energy efficiency, natural gas supply diversity and energy legislation.

"Natural gas is a clean, efficient and abundant U.S. and global energy resource. The wide-scale use of natural gas in residential, commercial, industrial, power generation and transportation applications is good for the global economy, the global environment and for the global energy consumer," Skains concluded.

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The American Gas Association, founded in 1918, represents 202 local energy companies that deliver clean natural gas throughout the United States. There are more than 70 million residential, commercial and industrial natural gas customers in the U.S., of which almost 93 percent — more than 65 million customers — receive their gas from AGA members. Today, natural gas meets almost one-fourth of the United States' energy needs.