Affecting

After navigating the long holiday weekend without a market-affecting event, natural gas futures traders — who had covered some shorts Friday to mitigate risk — let some air out of the balloon on Tuesday as the October contract closed at $3.852, down 8.7 cents from Friday’s finish.

Changes in natural gas market dynamics are affecting forward power prices and a relatively small snowpack in the Northwest is influencing both gas and power prices, according to FERC’s Summer 2010 Energy Market and Reliability Assessment, which was released Thursday.

Changes in natural gas market dynamics are affecting forward power prices and a relatively small snowpack in the Northwest is influencing both gas and power prices, according to FERC’s Summer 2010 Energy Market and Reliability Assessment, which was released Thursday.

Recession-driven sales declines, particularly among large commercial and industrial customers, are affecting combination Milwaukee-based utility Wisconsin Energy (WE), but the company nevertheless reported increased profits for the first quarter compared to the same period in 2008.

Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a customer-specific low-inventory OFO beyond Wednesday.

A day after rescinding Conform Transportation Services to Scheduled Nominations and FTNN (Firm Transportation No-Notice) Hourly Limit OFOs affecting several utility meters in New York state, Dominion said the same OFOs would be in effect for the same meters Sunday. Dominion also planned to implement those two OFOs Sunday in its PL-1 service area in the Mid-Atlantic.

Dominion rescinded Thursday two OFOs affecting several utility meters in New York state.

The global financial crisis is affecting FERC-related projects and programs, but how deeply it may impact the sector in 2009 is still unknown, said FERC Commissioner Philip Moeller, adding that the impact on renewables is already pronounced.

The global financial crisis is affecting FERC-related projects and programs, but how deeply it may impact the sector in 2009 is still unknown, said Commissioner Philip Moeller last week. He added that the impact on renewables is already pronounced.