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Enron Mail |
Summary of what we discussed the other night:
Background: power -- power prices have moved above $1000/mwh in the Northwest and are showing $600-700 for the first quarter of 01; forward prices in California have also moved well above the "soft cap" of $150. Sellers are exporting power from California to the Northwest. gas -- balance of the month gas in California was trading at $26-27 with Jan trading at $19, feb at $12-14 and Summer at $8. The Cal gas and power utilities remain unhedged (price caps are in place for retail power and utilities continue to buy power from the ISO and PX while gas utilities, we believe, are primarily buying at spot prices even under their long term deals). The power utilities will continue to book large deferrals and gas utilities will be passing costs through a month or two after incurring them. The impact of the gas price increases will begin showing up in Jan billings to consumers. curtailment rules (gas): More work to be done here, but it appears that gas utilities will curtail deliveries in the following order: interruptible first (with some priority for cogens); firm service (with utilities alternating or rolling between generation load and nongeneration load); and core customers last. Curtailment rules apparently allow the utilities to confiscate gas sold to direct access customers
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