62 BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
vestment in natural gas plants to $1 in telephones for each con- 
sumer. 
4. Fifty per cent more than in ordinary manufacturing gas plants, 
thus requiring $1.50 investment in natural gas plants to $1 in manu- 
facturing plants for each consumer. 
The investment from reserve acreage to domestic consumer’s meters 
in a natural gas plant rendering public utility service and selling on 
an average of about 100 M cubic feet of natural gas to each domestic 
consumer a year will be about $220 to each consumer, or $2.20 for 
each M cubic feet 6f gas delivered a year. 
The investment in a carbon black plant for each M cubic feet of 
natural gas that may be used a year, taking into account all of the 
favorable factors enumerated in the preceding section, will be only 
about 20 cents for each M cubic feet. 
This is an unappreciated factor that must be reckoned with in 
future natural gas service standards. 
COMPETITION ALWAYS ECONOMIC WASTE. 
Competition in a gas field always results in a duplication of lines, 
unnecessary wells, enhanced operating cost, lack of proper coordina- 
tion, failure to remove all the gas, and shortened life of the field, with 
the inevitable resulting injury to the domestic consumer. 
Under competitive conditions, even where the underground gas 
reservoir is made up of many local pools, various operators will drill 
into the same local pool, and thus drain out the gas from under each 
other’s leaseholds. 1 
EASE IN DRILLING INVITES. COMPETITION. 
The easier it is to drill a well in any given territory, the more 
wells will be drilled by small and inexperienced operators, and the 
greater will be the inefficient operation of the field. Furthermore, 
the indiscriminate drilling by inexperienced local operators always 
tends to increase the use of gas for manufacturing purposes, and 
takes the gas out at the fastest possible rate, thereby decreasing the 
effective life of the pool. 
CRITICAL NEED OF THE NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY. 
The natural gas industry is in a transition stage, going from the 
large volume and low-priced basis of the past to the small volume 
and inevitably higher price of the future. Strong individualism 
dominated the past. Public policy will ultimately require that 
legalized and regulated collective cooperation rather than cut throat 
competition, dominate the future. The greatest need of the industry 
1 For further discussion see United States National Museum Bulletin 102, Part 6, on 
Petroleum : A Resource Interpretation. 
