The market will ultimately cap the amount of natural gas that the United States exports, not policymakers, said an executive with CIBC World Markets at the Energy Information Administration‘s Energy Conference Tuesday in Washington, DC. Hypothetically, “if we were to see Henry Hub prices in the $5.00-7.00/Mcf range, it would make incremental [liquefied natural gas export] projects difficult,” said CIBC World’s head of commodity strategy Katherine Spector. CIBC is a unit of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. “There is a point that this [exports] will not make economic sense…I don’t know what the magic number is.” When natural gas in Asia is priced at $16.00, and gas at Henry Hub is $2.00-3.00, “it’s a no brainer.”

Sempra Energy‘s San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E) has marked the one-year anniversary of the 117-mile Sunrise Powerlink service from the Imperial Valley in the southeast corner of California to San Diego County. SDG&E, a 20% owner of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Songs), which will be closed, said the transmission line’s impact this summer is important. Given the loss of Songs’ 2,200 MW, Sunrise provides a major power delivery corridor across Southern California and “significant” amounts of imported power, said SDG&E CEO Jessie Knight.

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