A quite interesting story via the New York Times; a lot of people toss "crude oil" and "natural gas" into the same "energy" hamper, but they actually have quite different constructs in terms of demand/supply dynamics. (Mar 15, 2009: NYT - As Oil Prices Plunge, a Frenzy of Drilling Ends) It can most simply be described as the difference between an easily transportable, global commodity (crude oil) versus one that is not (natural gas). Hence the latter's supply/demand dynamics have been historically more focused on the localized economy. Put another way, in periods different from now when the entire globe is contracting - natural gas could be holding up in one part of the world, whereas it would be struggling much more in other parts. Versus crude oil which can be shipped quite promptly to wherever shortages are. This is also why Russia has Europe's cajones in an iron grip - since Europe is so dependant on Russian natural gas; and cannot turn to a "global supply" like they could with oil.

On a related note, coal used to act much more like natural gas but one of my thesis for why coal was to boom in latter 2007 was the voracious Chinese demand made it "worth it" to import cheap US coal (weak dollar). Even at the quite high transport costs it still made sense so you took a somewhat localized commodity and made it global. Now the commentators in this article believe with the onset of new liquefied natural gas terminals - this could be the onset of the same happening to natural gas. If so it could have some very interesting permutations for the natural gas bulls - please shake this post towards any old school natural gas bulls; it appears the old world rules will be changing in the coming years. That said, in the interim we know fundamentals will mean nothing as "facts" are to be ignored by commodity happy thesis buyers willing to overlook reality for "thesis".