Marketing Takes Center Stage As Gas and Electric Companies Compete

摘要

Mar.Ket.Ing—The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer; American Heritage Dictionary. Marketing—the single biggest change in the natural gas business of bringing gas from the wellhead to consumer. Late 1998 marked the 20th anniversary of the passage by Congress of the "Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978" (NGPA). The Act set the procedures and launched the economic deregulation of natural gas in interstate and intrastate markets. Because of a Supreme Court decision in 1954, natural gas prices were put under Federal control for gas in interstate sales. Once under government pricing, groups were seeking always to decontrol gas prices. Efforts to change were in vain.