Generation

It’s summer in the Lone Star State and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is setting power demand records again.

The natural gas supply story (too much, too cheap) is all too familiar. Trending, though, is the demand story of gas-fired power generation and exports to Mexico. Spectra Energy Corp./Partners LP executives were enthusiastic about both during a second quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday.

Low oil and natural gas prices that have reduced development activity from the Northeast to the Southwest cut into American Electric Power Co.’s (AEP) power sales to industrials in the second quarter.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects natural gas-fired power generation to set a record this year, providing an average of 3.8 million megawatt hours per day, a 4% increase from 2015.

California’s grid operator on Tuesday issued a 12-volume, 688-page tome analyzing various scenarios to create a multi-state, regional electricity market that would continue to phase out the use of fossil fuels, including natural gas, for power generation.

Access to shale natural gas from the United States will lower Mexico’s historically high electricity prices and encourage the siting of industrial operations in Mexico, according to an analysis by Fitch Ratings.

Southern California air pollution regulators on Thursday granted a variance to the nation’s largest municipal utility in Los Angeles to burn diesel fuel in three local generation plants, if necessary, to conserve on constrained amounts of natural gas due to the continuing shutdown at Southern California Gas Co.’s (SoCalGas) Aliso Canyon storage facility.

July natural gas traded at a new high overnight and is set to open 4 cents higher Monday morning at $2.60 as traders eye the arrival of warm temperatures, hefty gas-driven power loads, and a positive technical landscape. Overnight oil markets fell.

July natural gas is set to open a penny higher Friday morning at $2.42 as traders digest a mixed weather outlook as well as indications that the gas market landscape in California might not be as precarious as previously thought. Overnight oil markets fell.