Crunch

December looks like it will be crunch time for rising natural gas prices, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which Wednesday released a warning to its customers that it expects an 11% hike in average retail bills this month. The run-up in prices has been widely predicted by industry, utility and government sources for some time, the PG&E utility said in urging its gas customers to take steps to lessen the impact of the higher wholesale costs.

December looks like it will be crunch time for rising natural gas prices, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which Wednesday released a warning to its customers that it expects an 11% hike in average retail bills this month. The run-up in prices has been widely predicted by industry, utility and government sources for some time, the PG&E utility said in urging its gas customers to take steps to lessen the impact of the higher wholesale costs.

December looks like it will be crunch time for rising natural gas prices, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which Wednesday released a warning to its customers that it expects an 11% hike in average retail bills this month. The run-up in prices has been widely predicted by industry, utility and government sources for some time, the PG&E utility said in urging its gas customers to take steps to lessen the impact of the higher wholesale costs.

Concluding that the existing natural gas supply chain is “near the breaking point” despite abundant resources in the United States, the House task force on natural gas in a report last Tuesday placed much of the blame for restricted supplies on the federal government for its conflicting policies that promote gas consumption yet deny producers access to gas-rich federal lands.

Coming one day after Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned Congress of the gravity of the U.S. natural gas supply shortfall, the Senate on Wednesday passed a bipartisan amendment as part of its broad energy bill that would require the secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) to report to Capitol Hill on the gas market.

AES Corp.’s ongoing liquidity crunch was significantly eased last week after the Arlington, VA-based power company said that it has successfully completed a $2.1 billion bank and bond refinancing and entered into agreements to sell two of its Australian generation businesses for $165 million.

While seeking a “global” solution to its credit crunch, PG&E Corp.’s merchant energy unit Friday hit the bottom of the credit ratings as its defaulted on debt payments involving nearly $500 million and faces another $900 million of debt due in the first quarter next year that its executives say it can’t make the payments on.

Restricted access to capital brought on in part by the financial market’s recently-acquired aversion to anything relating to energy is holding back drilling and will contribute to a tight natural gas market over the next two years, according to Boston-based Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI) in its latest North American Natural Gas Stockwatch 2-Year Outlook.

Restricted access to capital brought on in part by the financial market’s recently-acquired aversion to anything relating to energy is holding back drilling and will contribute to a tight natural gas market over the next two years, according to Boston-based Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI) in its latest North American Natural Gas Stockwatch 2-Year Outlook.