Below

The below-investment-grade credit ratings plaguing many energy suppliers right now have substantially shrunk the pool of natural gas suppliers that California can tap to meet the 15 Bcf annual supply needs of a coalition of major state and local government facilities, which aggregate their loads through the state General Services Department’s gas-buying program.

The below-investment-grade credit ratings plaguing many energy suppliers right now have substantially shrunk the pool of natural gas suppliers that California can tap to meet the 15 Bcf annual supply needs of a coalition of major state and local government facilities, which aggregate their loads through the state General Services Department’s gas-buying program.

Projecting that its linepack would be below minimum target levels through Friday, Pacific Gas & Electric issued a customer-specific OFO for Wednesday.

Despite projecting Thursday morning that linepack would be below its minimum target level Friday, Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a low-inventory OFO beyond Thursday.

The August aftermarket started out Wednesday flat to moderately up from end-of-July numbers in most cases, although the Rockies, California and some Northeast citygates dropped by varying amounts up to nearly a quarter. Comparisons to apparent first-of-month indexes were mixed, with swing prices tending to be above index by 10-30 cents in the East, but many western points falling short of index levels.

After seeing its corporate credit rating downgraded to two levels below “junk status” and its stock skid to a low of 78 cents at one point last week, Williams Cos. Inc. got some much-needed good news Friday. First, the company announced it had reached an agreement in principle with California and a number of other parties, including Washington and Oregon, on a settlement to resolve all outstanding litigation/claims and refunds for electricity overcharges, and then FERC signaled it probably would not strip Williams of its license to sell power at unregulated rates.

After seeing its corporate credit rating downgraded to two levels below “junk status” and its stock skid to a low of 78 cents at one point last week, Williams Cos. Inc. got some much-needed good news Friday. First, the company announced it had reached an agreement in principle with California and a number of other parties, including Washington and Oregon, on a settlement to resolve all outstanding litigation/claims and refunds for electricity overcharges, and then FERC signaled it probably would not strip Williams of its license to sell power at unregulated rates.

The weekly withdrawal from storage was slightly below average market expectations of about 90 Bcf but not surprising in light of the week’s warmer than normal weather. Working storage levels at 2,212 Bcf remain incredibly high with 1.1 Tcf more working gas than at the same time last year and 675 Bcf more than the five-year average.

Pacific Gas & Electric has a customer-specific OFO in place today. It was projecting Tuesday that linepack would fall slightly below its minimum target level.