[DantesPeak]

Only two days ago, XCEL said there were "historically high levels" of NG inventories. Where did those inventories go in the last two days?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')ore relief on way for heating bills
By KAREN VIGIL
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN
While still higher than a year ago, March home heating bills will reflect another drop in wholesale natural gas prices, Xcel Energy announced Wednesday.

Heating bills for March will still exceed year-ago levels - by about 13 percent, based on historical usage levels - but will drop substantially from the current month, the utility said. This month's rates are 30 percent higher. January rates were 46 percent higher.

Xcel officials attributed the lower pricing mainly to a mild winter locally and nationally and subsequent growing natural gas inventories. "The weather also has allowed storage inventories to reach historically high levels for this time of year," Xcel said in a statement.

Under Xcel's proposal, the price would decrease to $0.6851 per therm in March from $0.8180 per therm in February. The new price reflects anticipated natural gas costs only for the month of March, the utility said.

[Leanan]

But all that storage wasn't enough?

Were they skimping on natural gas reserves, because the price has been so high?

[RonMN]

Honestly, this "cold snap" is pretty darn minor! I've been expecting to have NG shortages (thus freezing my arse off) this winter...what i was NOT expecting was a January in the 30's & 40's...and a February in the 10's and 20's. It should be 10-20 below zero right now (in Minnesota).

If this "cold snap" has caused a NG shortage, we are up crap creek without a paddle!

[Novus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('RonMN', 'H')onestly, this "cold snap" is pretty darn minor! I've been expecting to have NG shortages (thus freezing my arse off) this winter...what i was NOT expecting was a January in the 30's & 40's...and a February in the 10's and 20's. It should be 10-20 below zero right now (in Minnesota).

If this "cold snap" has caused a NG shortage, we are up crap creek without a paddle!

[Leanan]

Sounds like it was an infrastructure problem, rather than a supply one. They're probably sharing the same natural gas pipelines as the ones that supply home heating, so with everyone suddenly needing more natural gas, the pipelines just weren't big enough.

[aflatoxin]

I've done a lot of work in the past for CIG, which supplied all of the NG to denver. One end of the system is in the texas panhandle, the other end is in Western Wyoming, NW colorado.

It was a pretty big system. At one point they formed WIC which sent gas from Cheyenne to NNG's system that serves the midwest. A lot of CIG's gas also came form coal bed wells in the casper to Gilette area.

I stopped worlikg for CIG when El Paso bought them. El Paso holds a close second to Enron for business ethics.

I also worked for PSCo, prior to its aquisition by XCEL. One of the places I went to was an air blend plant near Brighton. At this place they had a bunch of BIG compressors that pumped air into the pipeline that fed Denver. THe purpose was to dilute the gas because Denver ran on low BTU gas. This was an artifact of the old City gas system that delivered 600 btu gas (NG is usually around 1000 BTU) because it was cheaper to do this than re-jet denver.

Everywhere that CIG gets gas, except the Jonah field in Wyoming is in steep decline. Most of the plants hooked up to that system have seen better days as well.

[Leanan]

Does that mean you think it was a supply problem, rather than an infrastructure problem? Are they not hooked up to the same pipelines that supply the eastern half of the country?

[ravensburg]

For winter this to my knowledge has not happened in the Denver area. I live on the outskirts of Denver on the west end and this is really troubling for a couple of reasons. I know that we produce a lot of natural gas up by Rangeley. Every time I bring this up to my mom that shortages are going to happen she tells me about all the capped wells up in that are just waiting to be pumped and I doubt even with this she will listen. Granted this place has been growing bigger and bigger and we going to start hitting a lot of problems this summer if we are hitting shortages right now. This however is not going to wake people up they are going to blame Xcel instead of looking at the bigger picture of what is happening here. The massive housing boom of the massive SQ houses is not helping the situation but people are not content unless they have the biggest. I mean for gods sake I have a person that drives to work from Fort Morgan that is over 100 miles away. I should get some pictures of some of the things they are building it is just mind boggling.

[Leanan]

I remember when Katrina hit, they showed diagrams of the pipelines. They went up from the Gulf region to the midwest and northeast, and also east to the southeastern states. Some went west, but California was pretty much cut off from the rest of the country. Gas prices went up there, too, but it was basically just gouging. There was no shortage there, like there was in the eastern half of the country, because they're on their own system.

[Leanan]

Jeez, that's kind of what happened in Russia during the European cold snap. The oil froze in the wells.

[Novus]

Oil does not freeze unless it has a very high water cut. Water being another sign of depleation we have gone over this before.

[TommyJefferson]

I have a friend who lives in the Dominican Republic. The power goes out there all the time, sometimes for days.

They adapted by wiring standby generators into their houses. Perhaps Colorado folks need to do the same.

[aflatoxin]

It's been a few years since I've been to CIG's plants, but prior to El Paso buying them out, they were a well managed company,

From my dealings with El Paso, I would not be surprised if the system died from neglect, or some genius figured out how to grab Denver by the ankles and shake out all of their money. For references, please check out enron/ElPaso/PGE/pacificorp/California circa 2000-2002.

It is more likely that the assholes that have been trying to turn Denver into phoenix/Los Angeles brought this upon themselves. Maybe the good citizens of Denver should resort to TDP and turn the developers into a viable energy source.

[Cobra_Strike]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', 'T')he inventories of oil and gas are high now, so it can't be shortages. Must be a capacity thing.

The sudden cold snap in the U.S. combined with the sudden increase in violence in Nigeria is probably going to gladden the hearts of oil investors...

[aflatoxin]

Natural gas wells are probably not going to freeze.

They use Dehydrators at the well heads or CDP, and just in case, there is plenty of Methyl alcohol. Once the gas makes it into the interstate pipeline system, it is bone dry, about 95% methane, 2% N2, 1.5% CO2 and a little ethane and heavies.

Water is a big problem in pipelines, the gas people worked out ways to remove *all* of it 50 years ago.

Crude oil is probably a different story

[Leanan]

But they said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')rozen liquid at the supplier's well head slowed the flow of natural gas.

[oilfreeandhappy]

I work for a Fortune 500 company in Fort Collins. We have a primary and backup feed from Platte River Power Authority. We had a power outage the same day. There's supposed to be an automatic switchover, but it failed for about 10-seconds, before power was restored.
Jim
http://home.comcast.net/~oil_free_and_happy/

[aflatoxin]

It would take more than one dehy to cause a problem. There are hundreds of small ones at the well head, more at the CDP's, some gas plants have them, and at any rate a modern cryo plant strips pretty much everything but Methane out.

More likely there is a rupture somewhere, a BIG problem at a compressor station, someone at El Paso or XCEL got behind on the bills, or someone else is getting the gas and Denver is getting left in the cold (ala Ukraine).

Maybe thay are doing stopple work on a main line somewhere. Due to some nasty accidents (And El Paso has very bloody hands here) they may be doing smart pigging and anomaly repairs somewhere. If the line is down, no amount of cold will bring it online untill it is safe. Repairs on a section of pipeline can take weeks to complete.

[aflatoxin]

There is a big storeage site west of Denver near Fort Morgan. Maybe it froze up. I remember freezing up there.

[MrsSmith]

I'm in the 'burbs south of Denver. Our power was out at 8:30 am for about a half hour. I figured it was probably a rolling black out - we don't normally see negative temperatures. Luckily it was a sunny morning and I just opened all the blinds on the east side of the house and let that passive-solar heat in. It could have been ugly if it was overcast and lasted longer.

This is the first time this has happened to us, but it's been a very mild and dry winter. The Rockies are seeing record snowfall however, so it could be colder up there. Plus more and more people are populating the mountains, which I'm sure drains the resources.