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The election of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to the presidency should be a boon to natural gas producers, but the forecast is turning dark for oil and coal industries already coping with falling prices.

The potential regulation of carbon dioxide emissions and the threat of a “windfall profits” tax on oil majors such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron Corp and ConocoPhillips have been two major themes of the Obama campaign. Both moves could erode the massive profits those companies have posted on the back of high crude oil prices, industry experts said.

High oil prices usually benefit companies such as Exxon, which last week set a U.S. record by posting quarterly operating profit of $13.4 billion, but Obama’s proposals have prompted some analysts to warn investors away from the sector.

“We believe that some of the Obama policies, such as a windfall tax on energy and full CO2 auctions, may lead to a negative result for the industry if (he is) elected,” analysts at Sanford Bernstein said in a pre-election note to investors.

Obama, who became the president-elect in Tuesday’s vote, campaigned on a platform of increasing fuel efficiency in the U.S. auto fleet and reducing crude oil imports that make up about three-quarters of the nation’s supply.

The Illinois senator, like his vanquished Republican rival Sen. John McCain, supports a trading system that would set prices for companies to emit carbon dioxide. That policy would hurt Massey Energy, Peabody Energy, Arch Coal and other producers of coal, long one of the cheapest forms of energy in the United States and the source of half the nation’s electricity.

That could be an opening for the natural gas industry to boost its 20 percent share in the nation’s power generation portfolio and even move into the automobile markets quick pay day loan.

As a result, natural gas producers like Chesapeake Energy had viewed an Obama presidency with optimism.

“This administration will be very favorably inclined to try to do something about introducing natural gas into the transportation network in a more aggressive way than what has happened in the past four to eight years,” Chesapeake Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon told analysts last week.

While the major oil companies also produce substantial amounts of natural gas, others, such as Devon Energy, Apache Corp and Canada’s EnCana Corp, are more focused on the fuel.

Although substantial hurdles stand in the way of boosting the role of natural gas as an automobile fuel, its emissions are half those of crude oil and coal.

Obama has endorsed cleaner coal technology that would remove pollutants such as carbon dioxide and allow them to be stored, but that technology has not been tested on a commercial scale, and widespread deployment remains years away. Congress earlier this year canceled a planned test power station because of soaring costs to build it.

LOWER OIL PRICES, NEW ATTITUDE?

Obama, like many other Democrats, initially opposed opening new areas for drilling, but softened his stance to support some moves in that direction as crude oil raced to a record above $147 a barrel and retail gasoline to more than $4 per gallon.

But a sharp pullback that has sliced more than 50 percent from the price of oil since July could move the new president away from that pledge. 

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