Energy In-depth: Natural gas prices sink to all-time, inflation adjusted low
by December 18, 2015 4:58 am 175 views
Editor’s note: Each Friday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Energy In-depth,” a round-up of energy and regulatory news.
WSJ: NATURAL GAS PRICES SINK TO ALL-TIME, INFLATION ADJUSTED LOW: Natural-gas fell to the lowest ever inflation-adjusted price in its history of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange this week as extremely warm weather continues to limit demand, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Prices for the front-month January contract settled down 3.2 cents, or 1.8%, at $1.79 a million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That is the lowest settlement since March 24, 1999. Gas prices have been falling precipitously in recent weeks because of the combination of record-high stockpiles and a December that could be the worst for heating demand in history, the Journal reported.
EIA RELEASES ANALYSES OF HOW END OF U.S. OIL EXPORT EMBARGO WILL IMPACT GLOBAL MARKETS: With a congressional agreement in place to lift the 40-year old export ban on U.S. oil exports, the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA) has issued a report that examines the implications that removing restrictions will have on domestic and international crude markets.
The analysis, which builds on and extends previous studies and activities related to the implications of growing domestic crude production that the EIA has undertaken since May 2014, uses cases drawn from its Annual Energy Outlook 2015 that incorporate a range of assumptions regarding domestic resource availability and world oil prices.
ENTERGY CLOSES DEAL ON SALE OF RHODE ISLAND POWER PLANT FOR $490 MILLION: Entergy Corp. on Thursday announced that its wholesale generation division, Entergy Wholesale Commodities, has closed on the sale of its 583-megawatt Rhode Island State Energy Center (RISEC), in Johnston, R.I., to Carlyle Power Partners. Entergy, parent company of Entergy Arkansas Inc., announced Oct. 8 that it had entered into an agreement to sell the natural gas-fired, combined-cycle plant to Carlyle. The base sales price, excluding adjustments, is approximately $490 million. Entergy Wholesale Commodities purchased RISEC for $346 million in December 2011.
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION RELEASES ‘CLIMATE ACTION PLAN’ TO CUT METHANE EMISSION: In support of the Obama Administration’s Climate Action Plan, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) jointly released the Biogas Opportunities Roadmap Progress Report this week, updating the federal government’s progress to reduce methane emissions.
The 2014 roadmap identified more than 2,000 sites across the United States that produce biogas, as well as the potential for an additional 11,000 biogas systems. If this potential is reached by 2030, biogas systems could produce enough energy to power more than 3 million American homes while reducing the methane emissions by an amount equivalent to 54 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from 11 million passenger vehicles.