Friday, April 15, 2016

Natural Gas Weekly Supply/Demand Report (and where new gas-fired electricity production is being built

Yesterday's "Today in Energy" was headlined "Natural gas storage ends winter heating season at record high" and the reaction of the futures was very persistent:
Front futures 1.907 down another 0.063
Here's the rest of the story, from the Energy Information Administration:

Natural Gas Weekly Update

In the News:
New gas-fired power plants are concentrated near major shale plays
In 2015, a combination of low natural gas prices, increases in gas-fired generation capacity, and coal power plant retirements led to a 19% annual increase in gas-fired power generation, with the gas share of total generation increasing from 28% in 2014 to 33% in 2015. The April 2016 Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts that this year, for the first time, natural gas-fired generation will exceed coal generation in the United States on an annual basis. Growth in gas-fired generation capacity is expected to continue over the next several years as 18.7 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, completed in 2016 or currently under construction, comes online between 2016 and 2018. This represents a 4% increase over the gas-fired capacity level at the end of 2015.

Many of these additions are concentrated around the prolific Marcellus and Utica shale region, largely located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, which have been leading the growth in U.S. natural gas production over the past several years. Among the states in relatively close proximity to the Marcellus and Utica, Virginia will account for the largest cumulative additions of gas-fired capacity over the 2016-18 period, with 2.3 GW of gas-fired capacity under construction, followed by Ohio with 1.9 GW, Pennsylvania with 1.8 GW, and Massachusetts with 0.7 GW, according to EIA's Electric Power Monthly.

Natural gas production from the Eagle Ford and Haynesville shale resources, located in Texas and Louisiana, has also grown, and there are notable levels of gas-fired capacity under construction in those areas. Texas has the second largest cumulative additions of gas-fired capacity, at 3.2 GW over the 2016-18 period, with neighboring Louisiana at 0.8 GW. In addition for the same period, Texas far exceeds the other states in planned gas-fired capacity with received and pending permits to construct 6.6 GW (cumulatively) over 2016-18....MORE
 Mean Temperature Anomaly (F) 7-Day Mean ending Apr 07, 2016