Inevitable

More than 32,000 Texans were forced out of their jobs in the energy industry from January through July and thousands more face “inevitable” job losses, according to the latest Texas Petro Index (TPI).

After futures had plunged 35.4 cents a day earlier, it was virtually inevitable that cash numbers fell at nearly all points Thursday. Some cooling load will be returning in the South Friday after a midweek cooldown, but the contribution to gas demand will be meager for the most part and overall weather fundamentals remain weak going into the weekend.

Higher electricity prices are inevitable, and it is a matter of choosing the right mixture of power generation sources to keep retail rates from increasing as much as 80% by 2020, according to a draft study released in June assessing Arizona’s energy future. The “Powering Arizona: Choices & Tradeoffs for Electricity Policy” study was conducted by Arizona State University (ASU) and a California-based nonprofit group, The Communications Institute.

Higher electricity prices are inevitable, and it is a matter of choosing the right mixture of power generation sources to keep retail rates from increasing as much as 80% by 2020, according to a draft study released in June assessing Arizona’s energy future. The “Powering Arizona: Choices & Tradeoffs for Electricity Policy” study was conducted by Arizona State University (ASU) and a California-based nonprofit group, The Communications Institute.

While there are still many regulatory and technology hurdles, the seeming inevitable union of clean coal carbon capture and storage in the power industry with carbon dioxide-hungry enhanced oil recovery (EOR) seems more likely to take place in the current world of $100/bbl oil and a push to lessen the future impact of global climate change. Ultimately how and how much value is placed on carbon dioxide (CO2) will have a lot to say about the impending marriage.

The Gulf of Mexico’s (GOM) oil and gas platforms, pipelines and processing facilities will never be hurricane-proof, but the energy industry has tried to do as much as it can as it prepares for the inevitable storms this summer. After the record-breaking 27 storms last year, companies are trying to leave nothing to chance.

American Electric Power (AEP) CEO Michael Morris last Wednesday said that he doesn’t believe mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. are inevitable, at least in the near term. “I don’t think that there’s a consensus in the Senate that would take you to that place,” he told reporters at a Washington, DC, briefing sponsored by the Energy Daily and BP America.

While merchant industry “consolidation is inevitable,” NRG Energy CEO David Crane doesn’t see much action anytime soon. “I look around to see people to consolidate with, I see a lot of debt.” And, having emerged from bankruptcy with “a balance sheet on the edge of being sustainable,” Crane is not inclined “to go back into balance sheet soup.”

The current decline in market liquidity is an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of the energy trading and accounting scandals that have arisen since the fall of the house of Enron. Sources in all market areas report seeing a gradual shrinking of liquidity as their risk management officials put various counterparties off-limits due to questions about their creditworthiness or reputation.