Fri Mar 19, 2010 3:47pm GMT
HOUSTON, March 19 (Reuters) - U.S. coal use fell 3 percent
last week from the week before, Genscape said Friday, as a
spring storm knocked out power to a million customers and
incentives grow for utilities to burn gas instead of coal.
Compared with the same week last year, U.S. coal
consumption, which is largely to fuel electricity generation,
was the same for the week ended Thursday, the power industry
data provider said.
Coal demand in the populous East was down 4 percent last
week but flat with last year, Genscape said. In the West, coal
use was down 1 percent for the week and 8 percent from the same
week last year.
Last week's storm system brought moderate temperatures but
severe winds and flooding rains to a swath of the Midwest and
Northeast, causing almost 1 million power outages in New
Jersey, New York and Connecticut, WSI Corp weather service
said.
In the less populated West, cooler temperatures and
mountain snows early in the week were offset by warmer weather
in the last few days, WSI said.
For reports on U.S. energy weather day by day, see
[WSC/OUS] and [WSC/STORM].
With natural gas prices around $4 per thousand cubic feet
and coal prices around $54 a ton, the stage is being set for
increased fuel substitution by utilities, Tudor Pickering &
Holt said in a note to clients.
"We expect meaningful switching to occur first in the
Southeast at about $4.25/Mcf, expanding to the Northeast at
just below $4/Mcf but not fully impacting the Midwestern
coal-fired fleet until $2.75/Mcf," Tudor Pickering said.
"Spot natural gas prices have again broken through the coal
floor for the first time in 18 weeks, highlighting the
tremendous surplus of natural gas in the United States,"
Merrill Lynch said in a client newsletter.
Moderating but volatile temperatures in spring and fall
lower coal-fired baseload power plant demand but cause peaks
that that are more likely to be handled by gas-fired plants.
Genscape's regional indexes are calculated separately from
the national index and do not always add up to the separately
Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1914868220100319
Comments
Post a Comment