Recent article on this ratio:
'Due to the recent Middle East unrest, crude oil and natural gas have become even more dislocated. As of the time of this writing, crude oil is trading around $99/barrel, while natural gas is trading at $3.842/mmbtu.
From a strictly scientific standpoint, 1 barrel of crude oil should cost about 5.8 times 1 mmbtu of natural gas, because 1 barrel of crude oil has 5.8x as much energy content as 1 mmbtu of natural gas. However, for various reasons, this ratio does not hold true. The natural gas lobby in Washington is not very popular, so even though the US could be thought of as the "Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas," our country does not really support it for political reasons. Instead, our politicians support coal and continued oil usage, while publicly claiming they want to end our dependence on foreign oil. If there was real initiative, the US could be completely energy independent, but this digresses from our real goal: analyzing macroeconomic trends to make sound investments.'
(Rest of article plus chart analysis linked below)
