Usual

In its usual split fashion, the five-member California Public Utilities Commission Thursday voted 3-2 to allow Southern California Edison Co. on an interim basis to hedge a portion of its natural gas price risk in power supply contracts with small qualifying facility (QF) electricity generators. Specifics of the authority are kept confidential for proprietary reasons. The hedges cannot extend beyond June 30, 2004.

Monday was a no good, very bad day across Wall Street, and as usual, the energy industry went along for the ride. For the energy merchants, however, it was more like getting hit by a truck.

CIG declared a Strained Operating Condition (SOC) that took effect Wednesday until further notice. The pipeline said its usual system flexibility is not available as a result of supplies in excess of markets north of the Springfield (CO) Compressor Station, the anticipated continuation of lower market requirements and the resulting high demand for storage injections. For the duration of the SOC, CIG will be unable to approve payback nominations to the pipeline or to accept any storage injection overrun requests. All interruptible storage shippers will be barred from nominating injections to their accounts. Finally, Auto Park and Loan rates will be raised to the maximum.

Officials of Florida Gas Transmission faced a tougher crowd than usual at its customer meeting in Key Biscayne, FL late in the week ending May 10, according to reports from attendees. The shippers were upset about two force majeures declared by the pipe in the days leading up to the meeting, and that was before a third force majeure in just over a week occurred on the meeting’s last day. Disagreements about curtailment priorities were also on the customers’ agenda.

Unable to resist the weakness of weather fundamentals any longer, combined with facing the usual demand dropoff over a weekend, swing prices registered double-digit losses at nearly all points Friday. An Overnominations Day declaration for Saturday by Southern California Gas caused the biggest drop of about half a dollar at border-SoCal Gas.

More than the California governor’s “usual suspects” appear in the list of top 20 power sellers to the state during the first five months of this year when average spot prices went from $321/MWh in January to $271/MWh in May, according to pricing information released Monday by the state Department of Water Resources (DWR). Average overall prices–spot and long term–paid by DWR went from $316/MWh in January to $243/MWh in May.

Midwest Generation reported last Thursday that operations were running normally at its Illinois power plants in the wake of a strike by union employees, who rejected a pay increase and demanded contract provisions that Midwest said would compromise the company’s ability to operate and maintain its facilities.

Midwest Generation reported on Thursday that operations were running normally at its Illinois power plants in the wake of a strike by union employees, who rejected a pay increase and demanded contract provisions that Midwest said would compromise the company’s ability to operate and maintain its facilities.

Following up on earlier requests for federal help, California’slargest electric utilities and their usual adversary, The UtilityReform Network (TURN), a utility watchdog group, jointly filed withthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Monday for a $100across-the-board cap on all wholesale electricity prices and forlonger term fixes, including a declaration that the state’selectricity market is unworkable under its current framework.