What is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? The Strategic Petroleum Reserve consists of a number of large underground caverns created in naturally occurring salt diapirs (domes) along the Gulf Coast of the United States. The caverns were created by drilling wells into the salt domes, dissolving the salt with water, pumping the salt water solution to…
Read MoreLate Friday, June 29, 2012 a destructive set of thunderstorms swept through the Mid-Atlantic region. With winds of up to 80 mph, the storms produced extensive damage and left several million utility customers without electricity. The National Weather Service (NWS) refers to this kind of fast-moving, long-lived, large, and violent thunderstorm complex as a “derecho.”…
Read MoreWhat does a warm day look like? Here are several ways of looking at one particularly warm day – June 21, 2012. The blue line on the graph below shows instantaneous electricity demand in PJM (see note 1). Electricity demand ebbed to 88,367 megawatts at 4:25 AM and then began to rise as temperatures in…
Read MoreOver the last 25 days, the daily spot price of natural gas at the Henry Hub has risen more than 30%. This is a dramatic percentage increase over a short period of time. Is it time to hit the panic button? No. In short, the percentage increase is so large because the base has gotten…
Read MoreMarkets adjust. There are perhaps few better examples of that adage than the crude oil and natural gas markets. One way of looking at how these two markets adjust is through the rotary rig count. Baker Hughes keeps track of the number of active drilling rigs in the US (and also internationally). Since July 1987,…
Read MoreOn December 16, 2011, we looked at the relationship between natural gas and crude oil prices (see “Crude Oil and Natural Gas Get a Divorce” here). We looked at how historically, on an energy equivalent basis ($/mmBtu), crude oil (West Texas Intermediate at Cushing, Oklahoma) traded at about a 50% premium to natural gas at…
Read MoreAvalon Energy Services recently completed an electricity procurement process for five properties in Washington, DC owned by Clarion Partners, LLC. Under the new supply contracts, the five buildings will pay 27% less, in aggregate, than what they currently pay under existing contracts. Avalon Energy Services’ press release related to this was picked up by a…
Read MoreMarch is the last month of the five month winter heating season. As of March 30, the level of US working gas in storage was 2,479 BCF. This is an increase during a time of the year when natural gas is historically withdrawn from storage, not injected. The March 30 level is 927 BCF, or…
Read MoreAs discussed on this blog, there is a common perception that energy prices have been, and continue to be, on a one way path upwards. In previous posts we focused on natural gas and showed that rather than rising, natural gas prices have, in fact, fallen dramatically, over both the short run and the long…
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