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In the wake of the American shale gas boom and the resulting cheaper power, U.S. manufacturers have been moving their work back home from overseas, and now foreign manufacturers, especially from Europe, are moving their facilities to the U.S.

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While prices in the U.S. power market have fallen due to cheap natural gas, prices in Europe’s power market are much higher, lifted by subsidies for renewable wind and solar power projects. European utilities have been decommissioning thousands of gigawatts from turbines in an effort to minimize losses.

One of the latest examples of a European company moving its manufacturing to the U.S. is Germany’s Siemens AG (FRA:SIE), which supplies equipment to companies that extract and ship natural gas, converts the fuel into power, and uses electricity on a large scale for manufacturing.

"Even though we have already missed a few opportunities, especially in unconventional oil-and-gas exploration, we still have excellent market-entry opportunities, especially in North America," Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said at a news conference on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Kaeser named former Royal Dutch Shell PLC (LON:RDSB) strategy head and American Lisa Davis as the new chief of the power business for Siemens. She will work from the U.S, a first for Munich-based Siemens, the Wall Street Journal reported. Siemens competes with Conneticut-based General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE).

Germany’s BASF SE (ETR:BAS), the world’s largest chemical company, announced this month it was considering building a $1.4 billion plant in the U.S. to convert natural gas into propylene, used in many petrochemicals.

Austria-based steelmaker Voestalpine AG announced plans last year to invest more than $760 million in a Texas plant, motivated by inexpensive shale gas.

While a decade ago, American manufacturing jobs were flowing to China, this year, more than 50 percent of $1 billion-plus U.S. companies with operations in China are considering moving all or part of their production back home, according to Boston Consulting Group. For example, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) plans to move about $50 billion in manufacturing to the U.S.

According to the National Association of Manufacturers, the exodus is due to high Chinese energy prices compared to America’s, escalating wages in China, lack of protection for intellectual property, air pollution and land prices.

The liberals will hate that.

Shipping it to the EU will solve the problem of manufacturing returning in short order.

North America is an energy colossus. Cheap, plentiful energy is the key to explosive economic growth.

So let’s talk investing; gold mining profit was made not on the gold itself in the gold rush, but on accommodations, tents, pickaxes, shovels, hats, boots...

In fracking, all the mobile home manufactures are private (unfortunately); what companies have nice moats around them and supply things like drill bits, and similar supplies? I was tracking CVCO, which was doing nicely. Anyone have any ideas?

US needs to make a strategic decision. If we keep NG/Oil at home we will have the most cheap energy source to power our factories and cars, or we sell it to the world who needs this badly. Right now the world buys NG at $ 12 to $ 15 per 1000 BTU. US consumers buy it at $ 4 to 5. If we export our NG that world price will drop but our domestic prices will rise to about $ 9 to $ 10. Here is the trade off. Higher prices means US may have a trade surplus in energy and tax revenues to help our gov pay down our debt/finance our military and political power against Russia and China. But it comes at a cost to the middle class as domestic prices will rise. On the other hand if we keep NG home we get low prices for factories and consumption, but we must find a way to balance our gov deficit which will eventually hold down US military and economic power. Both approaches have its trade offs and great implications to our future.
If you want nonentanglement, keep NG/oil home and power the middle class and industries and find a way to deal with the gov deficit over time. Under this scenario, the US cannot play empire till the deficit is squared away.
Sell the NG/oil overseas, fed gov will have a new revenue stream that can be used to pay down our debt, thus preserving US world power status, but the middle class will pay higher energy costs and temptation by neocons to play empire America. Thats my 2 cents in this matter.

"There was a natural gas boom in Algebra class late Monday afternoon after they served tacos in the cafeteria. BOOM!"

sorry....

Can’t have this. Obama is right now looking for ways to add regulations to fracking. Got to shut all this down in his mind.

Obama will have two things to say about this.

In front of the curtain he will take credit.

Behind the curtain he will do what he cans to stop it.