Council

Responding to criticism about the accuracy of the model and projected gas cost savings in the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC) natural gas study, John Guy, the deputy secretary of the NPC, said Wednesday that the agency’s members intend to have discussions about the merits of the critique but are unlikely to take any action if serous flaws in the report are uncovered.

The 87-page National Petroleum Council (NPC) report on natural gas last fall has become the bible of gas policy recommendations for many industry experts, government officials and legislators, but the modeling behind the report appears to be significantly flawed, according to a critique by several prominent economists.

The stepped up efforts by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) to shore up electric reliability in the U.S. in the wake of last summer’s devastating blackout in the U.S. and Canada could very well “backslide” without the eventual passage of federal legislation that makes currently voluntary reliability standards mandatory and fleshes out the role of federal regulators in the oversight of the grid, the CEO of NERC told reporters last Thursday.

With National Petroleum Council projections that liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries into the United States could grow to 15 Bcf/d by 2020 from about 2.5 Bcf/d currently, all of the majors are beginning to take significant positions in the domestic LNG market. ExxonMobil said last month that it is looking at four sites for U.S. LNG terminals (see NGI, Oct. 20), and last week Shell announced its own offshore Louisiana LNG terminal, which would be in direct competition with one already planned by ChevronTexaco.

The high-profile National Petroleum Council (NPC) study on natural gas has a “significant flaw” in that it overstated the potential impact of energy policy changes on future gas supply and demand, while it “virtually ignores” the effect of markets and prices on supply-demand, according to a Washington, DC-based energy consultant.

The high-profile National Petroleum Council (NPC) study on natural gas has a “significant flaw” in that it overstated the potential impact of energy policy changes on future gas supply and demand, but it “virtually ignores” the effect of markets and prices on supply-demand, according to a Washington, DC-based energy consultant.

A large crowd of regulators, industry officials, and natural gas consumers at the National Petroleum Council’s (NPC) emergency summit on natural gas supply on Thursday in Washington, DC, called for more natural gas conservation, increased energy efficiency measures and a greater focus on energy awareness prior to the next winter heating season. The Department of Energy (DOE) also announced plans for increased data collection and dissemination on the gas supply and demand situation. And state regulators announced that they would hold workshops across the nation with DOE, FERC and the NPC on natural gas supply, demand and prices.

In letters sent out to every member of Congress on Thursday, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents America’s largest industrial users of natural gas, the chemical industry, warned of an impending natural gas crisis that will trigger an economic recession.

In letters sent out to every member of Congress on Thursday, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents America’s largest industrial users of natural gas, the chemical industry, warned of an impending natural gas crisis that will trigger an economic recession.