North Americans need the oil and gas industry to do well
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Narrator: Oil and gas companies are often portrayed as evil tyrants, fuelled only by greed and a lust for a fat bottom line, with no thought given to environmental repercussions. And though events like the BP Oil spill exacerbate this image, according to Rayola Dougher, Senior Economic Advisor with the American Petroleum Institute, it is in the best interests of North Americans that the oil and gas industry does well:
Rayola: People should care that the oil and gas industry does well because we account for about 60% of the energy that the United States uses; we employee over nine million people; we account for about 7.7% of the gross domestic product.
Narrator: Pensioners and retirees in particular benefit from a healthy oil and gas industry. Rayola explains.
Rayola: In fact 98.5% of the stock in oil and natural gas companies are broadly owned by tens of millions of Americans: pensioners, mutual funds, other investors. When our companies do well, Americans do well, and these pension plans do well.
Rayola: For every dollar these pension plans invest in oil and natural gas companies, they return forty-two cents. And that compares with all the other investments they made which gave them a return of six cents.
