ABSTRACT
Economic regulation always requires difficult compromises. Every regulatory decision reflects a balancing act between the solution that would be produced by the marketplace actors left to themselves, and the solution that would be produced through some weighted voting process by the various parties affected by the regulatory intervention. The development of a natural gas industry, in a country like Canada, occurs within a global economic and governmental policy environment that changes over time. The management issues are somewhat different depending on whether the resources being considered are classed as "renewable" or "non-renewable. In the case of natural gas exports, or the export of any resource for that matter, pricing and price expectations of buyer and seller are crucial. All future uncertainties must be translated to the present in the form of a price at the time a sale is made. A fundamental issue is whether natural gas is indeed a strategic commodity, essential for the national welfare.
