Blizzard

While most have been disposed of or are lingering in court appeals, the blizzard of litigation after California’s wholesale energy market meltdown four years ago has spawned 236 separate lawsuits and a 42-page listing compiled by an attorney who has been involved in much of the litigation.

South Jersey Gas (SJG) posted a gas sendout record over the Jan. 29-30 weekend because of teeth-chattering cold temperatures averaging 17 degrees and blizzard conditions. Most folks in New Jersey apparently stayed home for the weekend and cranked up their heat. The utility company set a record for a three-day sendout at 1,197,580 decatherms of gas, which broke the prior record of 1,159,578 decatherms set Jan. 23-25 last winter. “Despite consistently cold weather, our portfolio of gas supplies was more than sufficient to meet our customers’ needs,” said Ed Graham, president of SJG. “We employ a prudent natural gas supply strategy which allows us to handle extreme winter temperatures like those recently affecting our region.” SJG has invested $380 million during the last eight years to improve its delivery system and infrastructure and because of growing demand on its system. The company serves 311,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in seven New Jersey counties.

South Jersey Gas (SJG) posted a gas sendout record over the weekend because of teeth-chattering temperatures averaging 17 degrees and blizzard conditions. Most folks in New Jersey apparently stayed home for the weekend and cranked up their heat.

Faced with a lengthy new siege of cold weather that could come close to rivaling the blizzard experienced last weekend, all Northeast citygates shot higher by multi-dollar amounts Wednesday. And once again the rest of the cash market appeared quite bland in comparison, with price movement seldom varying by much more than a nickel up or down from flat, although gains extended as high as about 35 cents (Dominion in Appalachia) and losses ran as big as half a dollar (Transco Station 45 in the Gulf Coast).

One might have thought much of North America was under a blizzard watch, judging from strong post-holiday gains Tuesday in the cash market and an even stronger screen performance. Instead, traders apparently were looking beyond this week’s continuing mundane weather fundamentals to new forecasts of something the market hasn’t seen a whole lot during this heating season: a seriously bad blast of winter next week.

In the midst of a blizzard of retail energy cost rate adjustments throughout the western states, Las Vegas, NV-based Southwest Gas Corp., provides an exception, facing the winter with lower retail rates and confidence that its supply/price situation will remain relatively stable, although it is keeping a wary eye on Enron’s supply deals with some of its largest customers, a spokesperson said Friday.

CIG said the Strained Operating Condition it had declared for the gas days of Wednesday and Thursday, which was caused by power outages related to blizzard conditions, was lifted Thursday.

The blizzard that blanketed the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast lastweek forced the cancellation of a major meeting that was called toconsider whether the Gas Industry Standards Board (GISB) shouldexpand its reach to develop national standards not only for theretail gas market, but for the retail and wholesale power markets.

The blizzard that blanketed the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastearlier this week forced the cancellation of a major meeting thatwas called to consider whether the Gas Industry Standards Board(GISB) should expand its reach to develop national standards forthe retail gas market, as well as for the retail and wholesalepower markets.