I can see that I am swimming against the tide here and I respect...

I can see that I am swimming against the tide here and I respect all opinions . My opinion comes from experience in hedging , but worse than that , the company I was working for hedged future production from an oil project not yet in production . Production was delayed and the oil price went up , forcing the company to cover and buy on the open market at $20/bbl for what they had sold forward at $14. At the time I think the directors panicked when the esteemed British publication , The Economist predicted with a front cover headline that the oil price was going down to $5 / bbl. Anyway , the company suffered a huge hit and was taken over for a fire sale price.
The bottom line for me is that I am not a fan of hedging in big companies . The E and P business is a commodity business and we take the good with the bad.