Demand

Leading Senate Democrats yesterday introduced two major bills -one addresses supply and demand policy shifts, while the otherproposes a mix of tax incentives – to tackle the escalatingproblems in the nation’s energy sectors.

Except for California softness, prices managed to edgemoderately higher Monday in the face of light weather-relateddemand and only a modicum of screen support. Unless they werelooking ahead to below normal temperatures forecast next week forthe eastern half of the U.S. by the National Weather Service,sources essentially had nothing concrete to which they could pointin explaining the upticks that continued Friday’s mini-rally.

Soaring California gas prices and rapidly rising gas demandmainly for power generation the Pacific Northwest and Californiahas prompted an expansion of the PG&E Gas TransmissionNorthwest (GTN) system. The pipeline said last week it plans tofile with FERC in April for a small initial expansion project fornext year but potentially could add 1 Bcf/d of capacity over thenext decade.

California’s governor late Friday confirmed that the latestplans call for the state to demand the equivalent of stock optionsin its two largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas andElectric and Southern California Edison, in return for the state’sproposed plan to spend billions of dollars in the next few monthsto help the two utilities avoid bankruptcy and to bring order toCalifornia’s increasingly chaotic energy markets, some of which hasbeen caused directly by the negative cash flow plaguing bothcompanies.

Allegheny Technologies Inc. and DukeSolutions signed acomprehensive energy alliance agreement yesterday for long-termenergy supply and demand management. Under terms of the contract,DukeSolutions will help ATI implement company-wide initiatives toreduce domestic energy costs in 12 states.

Cold weather and strong demand in the Northeast forced KeySpanEnergy shut-off supplies to 650 interruptible commercial customerson Long Island on Christmas eve.

With today’s electricity demand expanding beyond the reach ofavailable supply, and nationwide electric deregulation effortsproviding inconsistent results, distributed power just may be thenext big thing, according to Bear Stearns analyst Robert Winters.

With today’s electricity demand expanding beyond the reach ofavailable supply, and nationwide electric deregulation effortsproviding inconsistent results, distributed power just may be thenext big thing, according to Bear Stearns analyst Robert Winters.

Citing significant demand in its market area, Florida GasTransmission issued an Overage Alert Day notice Thursday, effectiveuntil further notice. The OFO has a 10% tolerance for negativedaily imbalances.