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Show More than one-third of America's total domestic energy en-ergy requirement is supplied by natural gas. Because of government regulations, however, how-ever, this gas is not evenly distributed throughout the country. There are two natural gas markets: in one, natural gas is sold in the same state where it is produced. This is the intrastate market where prices are set by supply and demand. The other market is the interstate market where the gas is produced in one tate or from federal lands offshore and then transported by pipeline for sale in another state. Interstate gas is price-controlled price-controlled by the Federal Power Commission. Prices in the unregulated intrastate market are higher than prices in the regulated interstate market. These higher prices have allowed intrastate in-trastate purchasers to attract much of the new gas supply. At these higher price levels, producers have been able to explore for and produce gas which heretofore has been non-commercial. This has caused a market increase in the gas dedicated to the intrastate intra-state market. At the same time it has caused a decrease in the gas available to other states where consumers need it but are prohibited by law from paying the going price in the intrastate market Nature Sets Pace A major difference between the pork industry and other industries is the nature of its production, says the National Nation-al Live Stock and Meat Board. The basic pork factory is the sow or female hog and nothing can be done to speed her up. When a pork producer wants to increase production, he must first increase the number num-ber of sows to be bred by keeping keep-ing them back from market. Once bred, a young female will give birth to a litter of approximately approx-imately seven little pigs in 1 14 days. Then the young pigs must be weaned and fed to a market weight of approximately approximate-ly 220 pounds, which takes five to six months. |