electric

As part of its monthly natural gas watch program, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. reported Thursday that retail gas utility rates for its residential customers will be about 25% higher this month compared with December 2004, and the average total gas bill for the month will be $110.55. While substantial, the amount of the hike is far less than the 40% to 70% increases that were predicted for this winter only a couple of months ago, the utility said.

Southern California Gas kept last Thursday’s high-linepack OFO in place through Saturday before lifting it for Sunday.

Pacific Gas & Electric followed up Tuesday’s customer-specific OFO with a declaration of a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO for Wednesday. It carried penalties of $1/Dth for exceeding a 5% tolerance on positive daily imbalances.

Emulating actions it took earlier in the week (see Daily GPI, Nov. 16), Pacific Gas & Electric late Thursday afternoon notified shippers that a customer-specific high-inventory OFO would be in place Friday and then expanded it to a systemwide Stage 3 high-inventory OFO for Saturday. The Stage 3 order carried penalties of $5/Dth for exceeding a 10% tolerance on positive daily imbalances.

After modifying Wednesday’s systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO to a Stage 3 order and raising penalties to $5/Dth for positive imbalances exceeding a 5% tolerance, Pacific Gas & Electric lifted the OFO for Thursday.

Late Monday Pacific Gas & Electric issued a customer-specific Stage 2 high-inventory OFO for Tuesday that carried penalties of $1/Dth for positive daily imbalances exceeding a 5% tolerance. It converted the OFO to a systemwide one for Wednesday with the same conditions.

With or without electric generation and transmission expansion plans in the West, a number of new natural gas pipeline and storage projects are unfolding throughout the region, according to a panel of executives from major developers at the “LDC Forum — Rockies & West” conference Tuesday in Los Angeles. The assortment of projects place many of the major industry players in direct head-to-head competition in the Rockies, Pacific Northwest and at the California-Arizona border.

Reversing their traditional adversarial roles, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and The Utility Reform Network (TURN) utility watchdog group announced Thursday they are cooperating on a winter bill mitigation program in the face of skyrocketing wholesale natural gas prices in the aftermath of the recent violent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The utility announced two major new initiatives it has developed in conjunction with TURN.

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. said it executed precedent agreements for the Potomac Expansion Project with Washington Gas Light Co., Baltimore Gas and Electric and Columbia Gas of Virginia to transport a total of 165,000 Dth/d of gas from receipt points with Pine Needle LNG and East Tennessee Natural Gas in North Carolina to delivery points in Northern Virginia and Maryland beginning as early as November 2007.