>>>Natural Gas Demand Charts<<<
Dennis' excellent charts (actually Robry's) I believe are self evident, but just to confirm if others see what I see:
For gas generation demand:
So the chart screams - cool the McMansions, cool the bigger and more numerous McMansions. Every summer it is worse. I would think that we would see a secondary electrical generation peak in the winter with more house heat (or direct NG use for house heat), but no.
Now for industrial:
It certainly seems apparent to me that there was a significant recovery in industrial demand. Would one infer that because this demand came back once, that it is "permanently flexible?" If we are looking at brick plants, can they efficiently be shut down for six months and returned to service when gas prices cool??? I am thinking that perhaps the answer is yes. For petrochemicals, the gas is the feedstock, and it makes sense to locate plant at the source. For bricks, glass, etc, the clay and silicon are the feedstock, and the gas is of secondary concern.
It is clear that if you add the two charts together, then you get the NG withdraws in August.
Now how much of the huge summer '06 electrical generation consumption was based on extreme heat, and how much was based upon inexpensive NG?
I have a slight sense that nuke and coal plant maintenance has been higher than normal for the current shoulder season, and that hence NG should be slightly favorably used for generation relative to past seasons. Regardless, I believe that the glut is history.
I was having self congratulatory thought over the weekend, about how I sensed a hedge fund blowup in September. Of course I did not see it coming, and it hurt me in the purse. However I did see the equites and commodity tank, and correctly concluded that a fund imploded. The great irony is that Amaranth apparently got creamed because the hurricanes failed to show. In reality, there was a hurricane of quite a different sort in the form of NG generation, and I believe that this form of hurricane will come back quite reliably year after year.
Frank, this closing shot is for you:
While mindlessly watching football (I was tired) a news show came on (60 Minutes?). Before I could turn it off, there was a brief discussion of power demand in Texas, plans of 29(?) new coal plants, and THE OPPONENTS OF THE COAL PLANTS HAVING BEEN ON A HUNGER STRIKE FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS.
Let me repeat that:
THE OPPONENTS OF THE COAL PLANTS HAVE BEEN ON A HUNGER STRIKE FOR THE LAST TEN DAYS.
I am used to protesters. I have read about lunatics climbing up smokestacks and flagpole sitting. Not too long ago, the governor of South Carolina, fearing terrorists, threatened to lie in the highway in front of a tiny shipment of plutonium in the form of waste from Europe (never mind the fact that about half of the nation's plutonium was produced at the Savannah River Plant near Aiken, SC). I have NEVER before heard of a hunger strike before over energy (coal or any other form).
Got gas?????? |
