U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Office of Energy Assurance
ENERGY ASSURANCE DAILY
November 9, 2004
Electricity
Sempra’s 324 Megawatt Elk Hills Gas-fired Unit Curtails Power
Reuters, 1349 November 9, 2004
AES’s 235 Megawatt Alamitos 5 Gas-fired Unit Curtails Power
Reuters, 1349 November 9, 2004
Cooper Nuke in Nebraska up to 56 Percent Power in Power
Nebraska Public Power District's 778-megawatt Cooper nuclear unit in Nebraska ramped up to 56 percent of capacity by early Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its power reactor status report. On Monday, the unit was operating at 20 percent of capacity after exiting an outage begun on about Oct. 19 to inspect and repair a turbine vibration.
Reuters, 0709 November 9, 2004
Bloomberg News, 0952 November 9, 2004
Salem Reactors in New Jersey Return to Full Power
Public Service Enterprise Group Inc.'s Salem 1 and 2 nuclear reactors in southern New Jersey returned to full power. The units reduced production Nov. 7 because of solar magnetic disturbances, said Skip Sindoni, a spokesman for the Newark, New Jersey-based company. The disturbances, caused by solar storms affecting the earth's surface, introduce ground currents that can overheat and damage electrical equipment, Sindoni said. Reducing power output can offset potential increases in ground current, he said. The 1,096-megawatt Salem 1 had reduced production to 77 percent of capacity and the 1,092-megawatt Salem 2 decreased output to 78 percent of capacity.
Bloomberg News, 1120 November 9, 2004
Calpine's Goldendale Energy Center Commences Operation
Calpine Corporation (NYSE: CPN) announced today that its 250 MW Goldendale Energy Center in Goldendale, Washington has begun commercial operation. The electric generating facility is interconnected with the Klickitat Public Utility District and the Bonneville Power Administration grid and will sell power into the Pacific Northwest's Mid-Columbia and California-Oregon Border delivery hubs.
Located about 50 miles south of Yakima, Wash. and 120 miles east of Portland, Ore., the facility is fueled by clean-burning natural gas. Featuring one General Electric Frame 7FA gas combustion turbine in combined- cycle with a Hitachi steam turbine, Goldendale is more efficient than most existing projects operating in the state, resulting in more affordable generation and a reduced environmental impact.
FPL Reschedules St. Lucie-2 Refueling Outage
Florida Power & Light (FPL) has postponed St. Lucie-2's scheduled refueling outage, originally planned to begin at the end of this month, until January 2005. In a recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, FPL cited the impacts of hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in September 2004 as the reason for changing the schedule. FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott said repairs are still
being made to some of the site's warehouses and offices that were damaged by the storms. Also, there were concerns about housing for outage workers, since many hotels in the area were damaged and are not expected to open until January.
Petroleum
Hurricane Ivan Oil Production Shut-in Statistics
Shut-in oil production is equivalent to 12.48% of daily production of oil in GOM, which is approximately 1.7 million BOPD. The 212,248 barrels per day that is currently shut-in is approximately 1.08% of the 19.7 million barrels consumed in the U.S. each day. The cumulative shut-in oil production for the period 9/11/04-11/9/04 is 28,702,109 bbls, which is equivalent to 4.744% of the yearly production of oil in the GOM which is approximately 605 million barrels.
Update -- Shell Texas Refinery Unit to Be Back to Normal Rates Today
Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world's second largest publicly traded oil company, expects a gasoline-producing unit at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery to be running normally later today after processing was slowed for repairs. The unit, a catalytic cracker, was put on ``stand-by'' mode on Sunday so the company could make repairs, said David McKinney, spokesman at the refinery. While the cracker wasn't completely shut down, production from the unit was halted, temporarily reducing the refinery's gasoline output, McKinney said. He didn't know what prompted the repairs.
Bloomberg News, 1216 November 9, 2004
Oil Falls to a 6-Week Low as U.S. Supplies Expected to Increase
Bloomberg News, 1336 November 8
NYMEX Crude Settles $1.72 Lower as Supply Concerns Evaporate
Oil Ends about $2 Lower in Trading on Tuesday
Update -- Suez Canal Navigation Resumes, Oil Route Cleared
Egypt's Suez Canal, the waterway that links the Mediterranean and Red Seas, opened after shipping was halted for three days by an oil tanker that ran aground halfway through it, the canal authority said. The Liberian-flagged Tropic Brilliance, laden with 142,547 tons of crude oil, ran aground three days ago, closing the 101-mile canal for the first time since 1975.
Bloomberg News, 0957 November 9, 2004
Iraq Halts Oil Flow on Northern Export Pipeline, Dow Jones Says
Iraq halted oil flows along its northern export pipeline to Turkey because of production problems at its
Kirkuk oil fields after persistent sabotage, Dow Jones Newswires
Bloomberg News, 1004 November 9, 2004
Nigeria's Senior Oil Workers' Union to Join Nov 16 Fuel Strike
Nigeria's white-collar union Pengassan Tuesday said it had taken a decision to join a general strike set to begin Nov 16 to protest a 25% hike in retail fuel prices. "We had an in-house meeting and the decision was taken to participate in the strike," Pengassan's general secretary Mojibayo Fadakinte told Platts. "We will be participating in the strike. We will start mobilizing workers from Friday. The chairman of every zone will go back and brief his workers," Fadakinte said after the meeting.
Northeast Faces 37 Pct. Rise in Heating Bill—EIAConsumers in the U.S. Northeast will see their heating oil bills soar an estimated 37 percent this winter, sharply higher than previously expected, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.
Natural Gas
Hurricane Ivan Natural Gas Production Shut-in Statistics
Shut-in gas production is equivalent to 5.99% of the daily production of gas in the GOM, which is approximately 12.3 BCFPD. The 737.86 MMCF per day that is currently shut-in is approximately 1.23% of the 60.184 BCF consumed in the U.S. each day. The cumulative shut-in gas production 9/11/04-11/9/04 is 116.205 BCF, which is equivalent to 2.611% of the yearly production of gas in the GOM which is approximately 4.45 TCF.
Trunkline Gas to Shut in Texas Pipeline to Complete Repairs
Trunkline Gas Co. will shut a pipeline between Cypress Station and GV 34 point in Texas November 16 though November 22 to make final repairs to the line that ruptured last week.
Bloomberg News, 1420 November 9, 2004
Natural Gas Prices Drop Almost 20 Percent in One Day
Natural gas for delivery at the Southern California border was trading around $5.54 to $5.59 per million British thermal units on Tuesday, sharply down from the prior day's average of $6.68 per mBtu. Henry Hub spot prices also dropped more than $1 between Monday and Tuesday.
Reuters, 1349 November 9, 2004
TransCanada and Shell to Pursue Offshore LNG Terminal in Long Island Sound
TransCanada Corporation and Shell US Gas & Power LLC today announced plans to develop an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal, named Broadwater Energy, in the New York State waters of Long Island Sound. The proposed terminal would be capable of receiving, storing, and regasifying imported LNG with an average send-out capacity of approximately one billion cubic feet a day of natural gas.
Bloomberg News, 1423 November 9, 2004
FERC OKs Compressor Upgrades on Transwestern's Panhandle Lateral
FERC on Monday issued a certificate to Transwestern Pipeline to upgrade existing compressor facilities on its Panhandle Lateral, which runs through parts of New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.
Natural Gas Intelligence, November 8, 2004
Other News
Nuclear-Power Industry Sees Signs of a U.S. Revival
The nuclear-power industry is laying the groundwork to build new plants in the U.S. for the first time in more than two decades. Buoyed by the re-election of President Bush, whose administration has pushed to expand nuclear power as part of its national energy plan, the industry sees a window of two to three years in which the political environment could make it easier to win approval for new projects. Late last week, two separate consortiums consisting of power companies and reactor makers received word that the Department of Energy would share in the cost of obtaining regulatory approval for new nuclear reactors. The two groups expect the cost of winning that approval to be about $500 million apiece, due to the detailed engineering and testing required by regulators for new reactors.
Energy Prices
Latest (11/09/04) / Week Ago / Year AgoCRUDE OIL
West Texas Intermediate US
$/Barrel / 47.40 / 49.60 / 30.73
NATURAL GAS
Henry Hub
$/Million Btu / 5.79 / 6.88 / 4.88
Source: Reuters
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