n an effort to find out what is on the minds I of some of the gas industry's largest customers and potential customers, late in 1392 the INGAA Foundation commissioned a survey of executives responsible for fuel-use decisions at industrial and electric generation facilities.
The Roper Organization mailed questionnaires to executives at 1,300 industrial companies and electric utilities, and 25 cogenerators and independent power producers. Some 365 completed questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 27.5 percent, which is generally considered to be very good for such a survey.
. -. "running out of gas."
That perception appears to be fading at last. I .
When the results were tabulated, two factors stood out as clearly the most important in shaping attitudes about using gas: reliability and price.
Reliability
The gas industry is still suffering to some extent from the after-effects of the "shortages" of the mid-l970s, when illconceived government price controls distorted the interaction berween supply and demand, leading many to conclude that the United States was "running out of gas."
That perception appears to be fading at last, in the face of studies that show a North American resource base that would provide a ninety-year supply of gas at present rates of consumption, using conventional technologies. Threequarters of the survey respondents said there is an abundant supply of natural gas for the foreseeable future. Two-thirds agreed with the explicit statement, "With respect to reliability, it is deliverability, not the resource base, that is the major concern."
Over 70