Featured Articles
| Wednesday Mar 9, 2016 | |
| As we move towards the end of March we approach a turning point in the natural gas supply and demand equation as storage facilities switch from withdrawing gas and begin to inject. Typically we see the turnaround happen close to April 1st. Currently, this year is on track to do just that, however looking at the fundamentals it is entirely possible that the storage curve may flatten before then end of the month. Figure 1| US Natural Gas Storage Levels - YoY April 1st coincides with the end of winter and a decrease ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 8, 2016 | |
| Yesterday, the EIA released the monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). In the words of the EIA, this report: "uses recent data on the total number of drilling rigs in operation along with estimates of drilling productivity and estimated changes in production from existing oil and natural gas wells to provide estimated changes in oil and natural gas production for seven key regions". The report estimates regional production for the current and next month for each of the basins. The latest update had a surprise in store for any expecting low prices ... » read more | |
| Monday Mar 7, 2016 | |
| In the final days of the 2016 legislative session, the Oregon House and Senate passed Senate Bill 1547 which makes sweeping changes to Oregon’s renewable energy policy. Governor Kate Brown is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming weeks. This legislation will stimulate the development of incremental renewable resources in Oregon and surrounding states. By and large, it seems like a reasonably thought through piece of legislation that will bring additional renewable energy to Oregon within certain cost containment parameters. Having said that, the 19 ... » read more | |
| Friday Mar 4, 2016 | |
| As per the notice on the Tallgrass website yesterday (Thursday). The Rockies Express production that was knocked out due to Tuesdays force majeure has started to return. All indications are that the 1 BCF/d of production should show up in tonight's evening cycle. Figure 1 | REX East Receipts - Daily When the outage occurred, REX increased the capacity of the Markwest receipt from 685 MDth/d to 725 MDth/d. Expect the capacity at this point to go back down to the original rating. The intended design of the point is only 600 MDth/d. The return of the ... » read more | |
| Thursday Mar 3, 2016 | |
| The Pacific Northwest is bracing itself for some more precipitation over the next 10 days. It is cold enough for the precipitation to be in the form of snow in the middle to upper elevation levels but the lower elevation will see plenty of rain. Figure 1 | National Weather Service - Pacific Northwest Precipitation Pattern This precipitation pattern has increased the overall MAF 6.3 for the Jan-July time period at The Dalles, with the most recent uptick being 1 full MAF (the previous report increased by 5.3 MAF) Figure 2 | NWRFC ESP Report - The Dalles As you ... » read more | |
| Wednesday Mar 2, 2016 | |
| For the last two days the day ahead price of power in Buffalo NY as average $10 above the price of power in NYC for the on peak average. To understand why Buffalo NY has higher power prices then the largest city in United States we need to go back a little ways. In September 2012 NRG retired two 185 MW coal units at the Dunkirk plant in Western NY. The retirement of the units has created reliability issues for Western NY power grid ever since. In summary, the transmission grid in Western NY is a delicate balance between the 345 KV and 230 KV ... » read more | |
| Tuesday Mar 1, 2016 | |
| Over the weekend, the 15 day forecast turned quite a bit warmer in the Midwest and Eastern part of the country as the overall average temperatures dropped by 43 hdds. Figure 1 | Weather Forecast Comparison - 2/29 vs. 2/26 The lack of demand led to hub cash trading down to $1.62 for the first day of March. Marcellus did not rebound after trading $0.93 over the weekend as it settled a penny higher at $0.94. On the supply side, Production has shifted back up to levels seen a couple of weeks back. There was some talk on the overall production falling last ... » read more | |
| Monday Feb 29, 2016 | |
| Last week we discussed the potential for an uptick wind development in the Pacific Northwest stemming from the 50% RPS bill that is making its way through the Oregon legislative process and the California 50% RPS requirements. The Oregon 50% RPS legislation is not a done deal, but it seems likely that if it doesn’t make it through the legislature in this session (ends in early March) it will likely be put on the ballot or will be re-introduced next year. These are great developments for the Northwest wind community. We haven’t seen activity like this in ... » read more | |
| Friday Feb 26, 2016 | |
| December was exceptionally warm in the Midwest, with Chicago temperatures averaging 10 degrees above normal for the month. Temperatures even reached a balmy 60 degrees around Christmas. Correspondingly, regional heating demand fell well below prior years. Sendouts averaged 9.8 bcf/d for the month, compared with 11.6 bcf/d in 2014 and 12.4 bcf/d in 2013. Accordingly, the Midwest region ended December with about 983 BCF of gas in storage, slightly above the previous 5-year maximum: Figure 1 | EIA Midwest Weekly Storage The hangover from the exceptionally warm December ... » read more | |
| Thursday Feb 25, 2016 | |
| As we discussed last week in one of the newsletters, both ERCOT and SPP saw record max wind hit their system. Such an increase, by default, is going to have an impact on the overall net power demand but it was not until I looked at the graph below did I realize just how much (some of it has to do with warmer temperatures the overall peak demand down, but most is due to the increasing wind capacity in ERCOT. Figure 1 | ERCOT's Net Load - Daily As you can see from the graph, we are well below the past two year's peak demand and the forecast is calling for that spread ... » read more | |