Friday, March 6, 2015

EIA Natural Gas Weekly Supply/Demand Report: Record Power Burn---No Impact On Price

As we come into the spring shoulder season there is a LOT of gas around.
Here's the last couple weeks price action from FinViz:

Not to put too fine a point on it but $2.00 is an outside possibility.
April $2.830 down 1.1 cents.

From the Energy Information Administration:

In the News:
Power burn reaches record January and February levels, driven by weather and structural change
Power burn, or the use of natural gas for power generation, reached record monthly levels in both January and February, driven by increased consumption in the eastern half of the country. Total power burn for January and February averaged 23.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), 3.6 Bcf/d higher than the five-year (2010-14) average for that period, according to data from Bentek Energy . Although colder-than-normal temperatures drove much of this change, power burn has been increasing over the past several winters in certain regions as more gas-fired capacity has been added. Additionally, relatively low natural gas prices have contributed to the displacement of generation by other fuels.

As single-digit temperatures gripped much of the eastern half of the country, new winter or monthly power generation load records were being set. The PJM Interconnection, the country's largest independent system operator, which manages a grid extending into 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and in the Midwest, set a winter peak demand record on February 20. On that day, demand increased to 143,826 megawatts (MW), besting the previous record of 142,863 MW, set in January 2014. One day earlier, the smaller Tennessee Valley Authority, which spans seven states, broke a February record, when demand reached 694 MW, 9 MW shy of TVA's all-time record high.

Power burn records for January and February were set in regions east of the Rocky Mountains, which experienced colder-than-normal temperatures during those months, while power burn in the West was below its five-year average. Natural gas consumption for electric generation is greatest in the eastern half of the country, which includes the three largest power burn regions, the Southeast, Northeast, and Texas. Power burn in these regions combined was 17.3 Bcf/d for January and February, 3.6 Bcf/d higher than the five-year average and 2.2 Bcf/d higher than their previous peak for that period, set in 2012. Southeast and Texas electricity consumption is more sensitive to winter temperatures than other areas of the country, as more of their heating requirements are satisfied by electricity.

Although the weather drove most of the changes in power burn this year, power burn has been growing over the past several years because of relatively low natural gas prices and an increasing amount of natural gas generation capacity that has come online. Retirements of nuclear and coal capacity have also supported the growth of the share of natural gas in the electric generation fuel mix. For example, Entergy's Vermont Nuclear plant, the fifth-largest source of generation in New England, accounting for 4% of New England's total electric generation, closed at the end of December 2014, and its loss may contribute to higher rates of gas use by the region's natural gas-fired generators....MUCH MORE