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Show St?al Has SGeeCis The advent of the heating season brings sharply into focus one of the many problems which defy easy solution over the months ahead-namely, the shortfall of natural gas supplies. WHILE THE industry has battled gamely to improve the situation, it has lost ground over the years, and the nation may be forced to "pay the piper" despite recent moves to ease one facet of a highly complex puzzle. Nevertheless, stocks of the natural gas companies which are among the better situated from the supply standpoint surely merit consideration for the portfolios of many invest-tors invest-tors at this juncture. THIS country has been fortunate for-tunate in recent years that the fuel and energy shortfall and related woes have not reached the extremely critical level. We have Mother Nature to thank for that good fortune. The last three years have seen relatively mild weather conditions con-ditions during important parts of the heating season. But can we count on Mother Nature to continue to bail us out? WEATHER CYCLES are as inexorable as agricultural and economic tides. This nation na-tion cannot continue to avoid facing up to the energy problem realistically and promptly. At some point, and it could well happen over the period immediately ahead, the weather will be rigorous and hostile. LUCKILY, MANY natural gas carriers and distributors have storage facilities underground un-derground or above ground that can be supplied in the off season. Then, when peak demand occurs, they are able to fall back on their stored reserves to fill the gap. But even these storage facilities, some of which are capable of containing contain-ing substantial volumes of gas, have physical limitations. limita-tions. IT IS TOO bad that in the face of such a vital problem the "special interest" groups have been unyielding. Hence, there is still an impasse on vital questions holding the key to the provision of incentives incen-tives needed to finance exploration and development work which can ferret out and bring onto the market new supplies of gas. Even if concessions were forthcoming in the near future, fu-ture, the nation probably could not avoid several more years of "touch and go" conditions con-ditions with respect to our supplies of natural gas. ACTUALLY, THERE is no way to -horten by much the time involved in geophysical work, drilling, pipeline construction, cons-truction, and the myriad other less visible jobs that must be done before the output out-put of a new gas field can reach the consumer. This is elementary, but some of the thinkers who thus . far appear to be the force behind legislative barriers would have the consuming public believe that all the foregoing can be done without capital and at a moment's notice. THE NATURAL gas stocks are normally considered to be among those issues that are "money rate sensitive." So, the effect of continuing inflationary infla-tionary pressures and the inability of the Fed to expand the money supply aggressively aggres-sively to stimulate the lethargic lethar-gic economy have kept the natural gas stocks low enough so that they still represent relatively good values. The pessimistically inclined might consider this climate far from promising, but the Research Department of Babson's Reports thinks otherwise. IT IS, the fact, exactly the type of investment environment environ-ment which breeds unusually promising buying opportunities opportuni-ties in certain sectors of the market. At this time the staff of Babson's Reports is glad of an added opportunity to put more investors into this significant sig-nificant industry. We currently recommend stock purchase of two of the better situated companies: American Natural Gas and Oklahoma Natural Gas. FOR THOSE who are interested in receiving a free detailed report on either or both of these concerns, write to Babson's Reports Inc., Wellesley Hills, Mass. 02181. |