UK Gas and Electricity Crisis Looming

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 13 Mar 2006, 13:15

Due to remain cold for at least another week...... following a cold end to February. Longest cold period in Britain for some time....

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 13 Mar 2006, 14:18

Natural gas for delivery tomorrow at the National Balancing Point more than doubled to 155 pence from 59.85 pence on March 10, said broker Spectron Group Plc.

165 pence now. oh the excitement

StephenCurran (Stef) · Post by **StephenCurran (Stef)** » 13 Mar 2006, 18:01

Hello Cassandra's
Been camping and walking in Cairngorms- good fun;.)- and really really cold............................

Woh! Go away for a few weeks and it's record wholesale gas prices and get this...
short=724GWh
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Gas/Data/dsr/
down 320 GWh
med = 2311 GWh
down 250 GWh
tot supply withdrawal ~ 50mcm
What the hell happened yesterday!!!??.... Demand was very high for a Sunday, but not that high compared to a normal SND (Seasonally Normal Day) during the week.
Were they using the extra gas to increase the overall pressure of the linepack??
Questions, Questions..!!
See Ya
Stef

Post by **clv101** » 13 Mar 2006, 18:26

U.K. Gas Jumps to a Record Because Supplies May Not Meet Demand

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- Natural-gas prices in the U.K. jumped to a record after supplies from Norway were curtailed, French gas workers went on strike and temperatures dropped below freezing, boosting demand.

Gas for delivery today at the National Balancing Point, the main U.K. trading hub, rose as much as fourfold to 255 pence a therm, according to broker Spectron Group Plc. The price is the highest since Bloomberg began tracking the market in 1999 and equals $33 per million British thermal units. A therm is 100,000 British thermal units. It was at 250 pence at about 2:30 p.m. London time.
Bloomberg

And I was starting to think the winter was pretty much over and we had dodged to bullet! So what happens by Thu/Fri when the short term storage is run dry?

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 13 Mar 2006, 18:41

LOL

what a bizarre day.

Gas shortages because of snow/blizzards and cold weather.

At the same time, Thames water are announcing hose pipe bans for 8 million customers!

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Mar 2006, 19:14

Some more interesting info here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... s&refer=uk

Gaz de France SA's shipments were slowed after workers opposed to its planned merger with Suez SA seized control of gas import terminals and storage facilities.

.....
Gaz de France workers this morning seized control of two liquefied natural gas import terminals and eight gas storage terminals, the Confederation Generale du Travail said in an e- mailed statement.

Statoil ASA, Norway's largest oil company, said today its Troll A platform in the North Sea was producing 10 percent below its capacity because of unspecified difficulties.

Malfunctions at the platform, which pumps a maximum of 110 million cubic meters of gas a day, had reduced output in February at Troll, the largest gas field in the North Sea. The field, which accounts for about 60 percent of the gas found off Norway's coast, was slated to resume full output on March 8.

Norsk Hydro said last week that production from the Oseberg field would remain at reduced levels during the weekend after faulty equipment curtailed production.

ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, said it will shut its Ekofisk field in the North Sea for four days this week, halting some 600,000 barrels a day of oil and gas production.

About 375,000 barrels of crude oil a day from the Ekofisk area will be shut down in the early hours of March 17, Ingvar Solberg, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips in Norway, said in a telephone interview today. Gas production from Ekofisk and oil and gas from several neighboring fields also will be halted, bringing the daily production loss to about 14 percent of Norway's daily output

Post by **mikepepler** » 13 Mar 2006, 20:11

The above is also mentioned on http://gasissues.blogspot.com/ (by our own John Hemming), and he has a nice bit of analysis:

A Phase 1 Gas Emergency is now looking likely and may occur as soon as Tuesday 14th March according to John Hemming MP, Chairman of the Independent Energy Scrutiny Panel.

"Sunday's gas consumption was 357 mcm and involved taking 320GWh from Short Term Storage leaving 724GWh. Today's demand according to the National Grid Website is predicted to be 380 mcm. All else being equal this would involve taking the maximum 526 GWh from Short Term Storage leaving just under 200 GWh. Tomorrow's Gas Demand is predicted at 372 mcm which (all else being equal) would require about 400 GWh from a store of Short Term Gas which only has 198 GWh in it. This would cause a Phase 1 Gas Emergency with disconnections of large users."

"Obviously one would expect some demand reduction as a result of the Gas Balancing Alert. It is also possible that imports via the interconnector will pick up. The cold weather, however, is predicted to last a while longer. Medium Term Storage is likely to be running below 30% by the end of Tuesday's Gas Day. It is, however, now likely that there will be a gas emergency this week (likely estimated as a probability of over 50%) "

"Prices started rocketing on Sunday and have spiked intraday today at ?2.55 per therm. This is symptomatic of the nature of the gas market where most demand is not sensitive to the spot price. That is why the demand reduction from the Gas Balancing Alert is likely to be lower than expected by government and Ofgem."

The forecast numbers have changed slightly since John wrote this, but it still holds true. It's frustrating that you can't see the opening storage levels until the afternoon, so you only know for sure about the problem after it's hit...

dr_doom · Post by **dr_doom** » 13 Mar 2006, 22:23

Ouch!

StephenCurran (Stef) · Post by **StephenCurran (Stef)** » 13 Mar 2006, 23:10

Excellant graph Doc
I see the subject was broached for all of 30 seconds on BBC 10 O'Clock news.
Just does not seem enough to me.... best to be cautious perhaps

Ballard · Post by **Ballard** » 13 Mar 2006, 23:27

This issue is one the front of the Guardian tomorrow....

Also reported here: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money-save ... _page_id=5

Post by **clv101** » 13 Mar 2006, 23:35

My summary at The Oil Drum.

dr_doom · Post by **dr_doom** » 13 Mar 2006, 23:36

StephenCurran (Stef) wrote:Excellant graph Doc
I see the subject was broached for all of 30 seconds on BBC 10 O'Clock news.
Just does not seem enough to me.... best to be cautious perhaps

I was going to mention something along those lines seeing as how it wasn't even touched on in the headlines.

But as you say they managed to fit it in a 30 second slot at the end.
Such a minor story that it is; compared to Mr Blair taping conversations??

As a side note from watching the news.

I now think it's a good thing that oyster cards track all my movements.
Three "random" interviews from people on the street that who all hold the same view that having your movements on the underground chronicled is a good thing.

Post by **clv101** » 14 Mar 2006, 06:27

Here's an interesting article from The Guardian: Warnings were ignored of looming British gas crisis

Any chance they've been reading this thread?

charlie · Post by **charlie** » 14 Mar 2006, 11:08

they're discussing the guardian article on the today programme on this link about 2 mins 55 secs in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/liste ... 060314.ram

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 14 Mar 2006, 13:39

Ongoing price increases and John Hemming's question to be answered in parliament this afternoon.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4804504.stm

Rough gas rig out of production until May.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/ ... 802656.stm