New pipelines will even out gas prices

SALT LAKE CITY – In the Rocky Mountains, the energy crisis has mostly been a crisis for natural gas producers and a boon for consumers.

Last fall, gas suppliers competing to stuff excess production into constrained pipeline systems drove spot prices to a laughably low 5 cents for 1,000 cubic feet of gas. That’s the equivalent of a nickel to heat a typical house for two winter days.


“A lot of producers didn’t think it was funny,” said Porter Bennett, president and chief executive for energy analysts Bentek Energy LLC. “They were actually paying somebody to take it.” Storing gas or turning off wells isn’t always practical.

Yet for consumers across much of the West, where natural gas historically has been cheap and plentiful, the party is almost over, and it may have ended with that final discount splurge. The first of a handful of major new pipelines originating in the Rocky Mountains is starting to siphon away the bounty, promising lower prices for other regions.

“If you don’t care about the rest of the country, it’s not such a good thing,” Bennett said in Golden, Colo. “We kind of get screwed in the deal.”

AP