Winter

Canadian exporters got off to a spectacular start, piling up a 253% increase in revenues from sales to the United States during the first quarter of the current natural gas contract year. In Canadian dollars, the value of gas exports shot up to $11.6 billion during the three months that ended Jan. 31 compared to $3.28 billion in the same period of 1999-2000, according to records kept by the National Energy Board.

Canadian exporters got off to a spectacular start, piling up a 253% increase in revenues from sales to the United States during the first quarter of the current natural gas contract year. In Canadian dollars, the value of gas exports shot up to $11.6 billion during the three months that ended Jan. 31 compared to $3.28 billion in the same period of 1999-2000, according to records kept by the National Energy Board.

As predicted by National Energy Board (NEB) member Jean-PaulTheoret in a winter speech to a Quebec lawyers’ conference, thefirst results of unleashing competition in the formerly stableCanadian natural gas pipeline community are “messy markets” andpotentially “messy outcomes.” That became clear in one of the firsttests of the NEB’s declared intentions to encourage growth of atrue market in transportation services by making flexibility andadaptability the watchwords for a new era of light-handedregulation.

As predicted by National Energy Board (NEB) member Jean-Paul Theoret in a winter speech to a Quebec lawyers’ conference, the first results of unleashing competition in the formerly stable Canadian natural gas pipeline community are “messy markets” and potentially “messy outcomes.” That became clear in one of the first tests of the NEB’s declared intentions to encourage growth of a true market in transportation services by making flexibility and adaptability the watchwords for a new era of light-handed regulation.

With a winter season peak demand of less than 30,000 MW,California nonetheless Monday instituted rolling blackouts of 1,000MW across nearly the entire state shortly after Noon PST. TheCal-ISO said the system was down 14,000 MW of capacity due toplanned maintenance, a generator accident, lower imports and somepower loss from qualifying facility (QF) cogeneration plants.

Come April Fool’s Day it will be no joke. Nearly 200,000 Georgia natural gas customers who haven’t paid their winter heating bills risk losing their service, and the threat is so real that the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is warning consumers delinquent in their payments to contact their marketers now. The PSC’s moratorium on nonpayment shutoffs, enacted Jan. 17, expires the first day of next month.

Come April Fool’s Day it will be no joke. Nearly 200,000 Georgia natural gas customers who haven’t paid their winter heating bills risk losing their service, and the threat is so real that the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is warning consumers delinquent in their payments to contact their marketers now. The PSC’s moratorium on nonpayment shutoffs, enacted Jan. 17, expires the first day of next month.

Come April Fool’s Day it will be no joke. Nearly 200,000 Georgianatural gas customers who haven’t paid their winter heating billsrisk losing their service, and the threat is so real that theGeorgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is warning consumersdelinquent in their payments to contact their marketers now. ThePSC’s moratorium on nonpayment shutoffs, enacted Jan. 17, expiresthe first day of next month.

All points were falling Monday in the general absence of severewinter weather except in parts of the Upper Midwest. For a change,the softness was relatively consistent; although California onceagain registered declines larger than most at the border and Malin,it was not nearly as out of step with the overall market as itoften had been since March began. Most of Monday’s drops werebetween 10 and 20 cents.