Hydro

After weeks of softening for natural gas forwards, prices bounced back during the April 4-10 period as production remains down from earlier post-winter highs. May prices rose an average of 4 cents, while June rose a nickel, according to NGI’s Forward Look.

Washington state regulators on Wednesday unanimously rejected the proposed $5.3 billion takeover of natural gas and power distributor Avista Corp. by Ontario-based utility Hydro One Ltd., saying the proposed acquisition does not serve the public interest. It was a unanimous 3-0 decision.

Demand for natural gas from power generators may approach record highs this summer, and reserve margins are expected to be adequate in most regions, but some familiar problems could make the Southern California and Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) areas problematic, according to FERC data released Thursday.

Only two months after a privatization share sale, newly investor-controlled Ontario utility Hydro One Ltd. expanded Wednesday into the northwestern United States with a friendly takeover of Spokane, WA-based natural gas and power distributor Avista Corp.

Natural gas forwards prices rose across the curve from Feb. 24 to March 2 as bullish sentiment heading into the summer trumped bearish headwinds from a lamb-like early end of winter tied together with a surprise storage build.

A government-owned Canadian electricity exporter is making a C$350 million ($262 million) bet that the “clean” power movement in the United States will outlast the imminent pro-fossil fuels regime change in Washington, DC.

By 2016, the world will get more of its electricity from renewables — hydro, wind, solar, etc. — than from natural gas, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) “Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report.” But in the Americas, particularly the United States, natural gas is still in the lead.

Natural gas prices for electric generation in California last year decreased 30%, but overall wholesale power prices decreased only 2% for the year because of offsetting lower hydro-electric supplies, increased congestion and the loss of 2,000 MW of nuclear generation for the year, according to an annual market report released Monday by the state grid operator.

Siemens Water Technologies will provide Hydro Recovery LP with a system to treat natural gas hydraulic fracturing wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling and produced water from operating wells in northeastern Pennsylvania. The system, which Siemens said will produce a hydraulic stimulation fluid for reuse, will be part of a new wastewater treatment plant scheduled to go online in April in Tioga County, PA. The system is designed to treat 288,000 gallons of wastewater daily, reducing total suspended solids to less than 100 parts per million. Last year Pennsylvania adopted wastewater treatment rules that limit discharges of wastewater from gas drilling to 500 milligrams per liter (mg/l) of total dissolved solids and 250 mg/l for chlorides (see Daily GPI, Aug. 26, 2010).