Chris

I don't think the Tweeter in question was quite arguing over whether we may or may not run out of gas. Rather he was interested in the argument that the present high wholesale prices don't justify further exploration or exploitation, because they would still be sold on a global market and would not be dedicated to the UK and capable of giving us much lower prices than anywhere else.

I think his argument falls down a bit because if we were able to significantly increase the commodity available in the market then the global price would come down; plus, natural resources extracted from the UK do generate income for the treasury. So it's not quite as black and white as all that.