The Gas Bank had been a kind of physical hedge; now trading took the next step. It freed Enron from having to own assets involved in the production and transportation of natural gas. In theory, instead of owning a portfolio of assets—natural-gas reserves and pipelines—Enron could simply own a portfolio of contracts that would allow it to control the resources it needed. Instead of seeing a commitment to deliver natural gas as something that necessarily involved a pipeline, Enron saw it as a financial commitment. It was a whole new way of conceptualizing the business, one that in theory
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