Gather up your oil bears now, and begone from my sight? Could record AGA/API build-ups, turn to record withdrawals?
Check out this drought map:
enso.unl.edu
This info was grabbed from:
cia.gov
Canadian Electricity - production: 550.852 billion kWh (1998)
Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 27.18%
hydro: 59.77%
nuclear: 12.25%
other: 0.8% (1998)
Electricity - consumption: 484.515 billion kWh (1998)
Electricity - exports: 39.502 billion kWh (1998)
Electricity - imports: 11.725 billion kWh (1998)
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U.S. Electricity - production: 3.62 trillion kWh (1998)
Electricity - production by source:
fossil fuel: 70.34%
hydro: 8.96%
nuclear: 18.61%
other: 2.09% (1998)
Electricity - consumption: 3.365 trillion kWh (1998)
Electricity - exports: 12.772 billion kWh (1998)
Electricity - imports: 39.513 billion kWh (1998)
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British Columbia's Energy Supply May Stop Flowing Into California
By Tamsin Carlisle June 15, 2001
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
CALGARY, Alberta -- British Columbia, which has been exporting electricity to California to ease the state's power crisis, could soon face a power shortage of its own.
The Canadian province's problem stems from poor snowfall last winter that has left reservoirs behind hydroelectric dams at their lowest levels in 25 years. Hydroelectricity accounts for over 90% of power production in British Columbia.
Even if a power crunch is averted in the province this summer, analysts predict, British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, the provincial electric utility, will cut back its power exports to needy western U.S. states and neighboring Alberta in coming months.
"It's a very big concern," says Oscar Hidalgo, a spokesman for California's Department of Water Resources. The state faces shrinking availability of water power from British Columbia, the U.S. Pacific Northwest and its own hydro facilities just as it is heading into its peak air-conditioning season, he says.
British Columbia's electricity exports to the U.S. last year totaled 9,947 gigawatt hours (a gigawatt is a thousand megawatts) and generated nearly two billion Canadian dollars (US$1.32 billion) in revenue, according to Canada's National Energy Board. The province exported a further 1,216 gigawatt hours of electricity, generating C$778 million in revenue, in the first three months of 2001. That is down sharply from the 2,041 gigawatt hours of power sold into U.S. markets, for only C$74 million, a year earlier, before California power prices surged.
For the rest of this year, British Columbia might meet its own power needs but will have less surplus electricity available for export, if any at all, says Dennis Lawrence, a research analyst with FirstEnergy Capital Corp., Calgary, a financial services firm that has been tracking western electricity markets.
Whether British Columbia itself faces a crunch this summer will depend largely on whether BC Hydro draws down water to satisfy summer power demand or opts to conserve water in case snowfall is light this winter, Mr. Lawrence adds.
Signs of tightening supply include already declining exports and a recent BC Hydro proposal, now awaiting regulatory approval, to lower electricity rates for large British Columbia industrial customers that reduce their power consumption.
This month, aluminum maker Alcan <http://interactive.wsj.com/public/resources/cgi-bin/public-quotes.cgi?profile-name=quote-lookup&profile-version=3.0&profile-type=Portfolio&profile-format-action=include&p-sym=al&p-type=usstock+usfund&profile-end=quote-lookup> Inc. said it will cut back production to 50% of capacity at its smelter in northern British Columbia, where it also operates a hydro facility. The Montreal company said low water levels behind its dam made the production cutbacks necessary in order to meet contractual obligations to supply power to BC Hydro.
In neighboring Alberta, Power Pool of Alberta, which manages the province's deregulated wholesale power market, expects "a tight but manageable supply situation" this summer, says Wayne St. Amour, vice president for customer and corporate services. After importing electricity from British Columbia last winter to deal with a power crunch at home, Alberta has since March been exporting small amounts of power to its western neighbor. But net power exports from the province are unlikely to continue through the summer, analysts say.
Mr. Lawrence projects that Alberta's wholesale electricity prices will exceed C$100 a megawatt hour for the rest of this year, more than double the prices that prevailed before a big price spike last winter. Beyond early 2002, he predicts Alberta electricity rates will fall back gradually, declining to around C$67 a megawatt by 2004.
In British Columbia, regulated local electricity rates haven't changed since 1993. Last winter, however, electricity deregulation combined with local power shortages in interconnected jurisdictions, including Alberta and California, enabled BC Hydro to profit handsomely from high-priced power exports. An estimated electricity trade profit of C$1 billion from BC Hydro for the fiscal year ended March 31 has provided a windfall for British Columbia's government.
Now, BC Hydro says it will restrict further sales into the California market to existing contracts held by credit-worthy customers. "Our No. 1 priority is to meet the needs of our customers in British Columbia," says Elisha Odowichuk, a BC Hydro spokeswoman.
Other British Columbia power producers may continue selling electricity to U.S. customers. After curtailing production at its Trail, British Columbia, zinc refinery by 25% for the past three months, Cominco <http://interactive.wsj.com/public/resources/cgi-bin/public-quotes.cgi?profile-name=quote-lookup&profile-version=3.0&profile-type=Portfolio&profile-format-action=include&p-sym=clt&p-type=usstock+usfund&profile-end=quote-lookup> Inc., a Vancouver mining company, plans to shut down the smelter completely from July to September so it can export the electricity it would otherwise use for zinc refining.
But FirstEnergy's Mr. Lawrence says a recent spell of wet weather in British Columbia in early June has done little to change the province's tight overall supplies.
"A huge proportion of the total water that feeds the system flows in winter. It would have to rain all summer," he says. "We'd have to go from the driest winter on record to the wettest summer for it to really make a difference."
Write to Tamsin Carlisle at tamsin.carlisle@wsj.com |
