Posted on 09/29/2005 2:21:42 PM PDT by M. Espinola
The cost of natural gas reached another record high Thursday, rising 9.6 cents or 0.7 percent to close at $14.196 per million Btu.
Traders bid up the commodity on the New York Mercantile Exchange after the U.S. Energy Department reported natural gas inventories had grown less than expected and the pace of production recovery in the Gulf of Mexico slowed.
Crude oil rose 44 cents to settle at $66.79 per barrel.
Gasoline for October delivery dropped 3.4 percent to close at $2.2516 a gallon, and October heating oil fell 0.8 percent to close at $2.1247 a gallon.
The Energy Department said the nation's store of natural gas was up last week by 53 billion cubic feet over the previous week despite production closures caused by Hurricane Rita.
Some economists had expected as much, but a number of commodity traders saw the increase as inadequate and, thus, a reason to bid up the price.
Total U.S. supply of natural gas was reported to be within its recent historical range for this time of year, the Energy Department said.
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bumping for more comments
In a nutshell, any electricity I use during what I call primetime, currently 12pm - 9pm for my utility, is charged at double the normal rate. Right now normal being around .08kwh so primetime usage is charged at around .16kwh.
Now, the better part of this is lowtime usage. Non-primetime usage during the week, and all day weekends and holidays, is charged at half the normal rate, or about .04kwh.
This works well for us and our lifestyle and has been saving us between 75.00 - 100.00 a month during the summer months since 1996.
3 dog night = 9 cat night
Here in Pennsylvania we get 36% of our power from nuke. We need to build more nukes
Basically more of everything but the kind of ridiculous regulations that have led us down the merry path to 'not enough'.
One caveat, however: That will not come cheaply. Everything else has gone up significantly in price but energy in the last 25 years, and the energy industry is playing catch-up. Instead of being thankful that they have had it cheap for as long as they have, people are squealing like stuck pigs.
OK ... how did they do at your place of employment last year? (and where should I send your share of the bill? Certified check only please)
We submit a rate change to the state quarterly. A component of the rate is a catch-up to make up for price changes during the quarter. So price increases and decreases do get to the consumer at a slower rate than on the wholeslae market.
Do you know if there are any new models of natural burners which would heat as well, but consume less?
I don't know. I'm fairly new to the industry. ,
As I post this Natural Gas for the November contract is @$13.900 down -0.296.
It's profit taking Friday. All the traded energies are down. November Crude is off $1.09 @$65.70. In relation to the end of 2003 oil & natural gas prices have more than doubled.
Have a good weekend!
Another thing that's really needed is a major increase in efficiency of long-distance power transmission. That way we would be more able to build plants far enough away that people would complain less about having them in their back yards
I switched to electric space heaters and am toughing it out. My heaters don't use as much as my air conditioning yet. I can keep my bedroom really warm, but the rest of the house is frigid. Haven't turned on the furnace yet, and I'm going to try not to. I live in the midwest, and our electricity is coal. Also, I lost 94 pounds this year, so I am feeling the chill a bit more this year. But I don't care. I don't want to send any more $250 dollar checks to Vectren. I'm doing my part to cut demand. I like and believe in capitalism, so I don't want government controls. But I'll tell you, these insanely high energy prices are making me furious. So I'll do what I can through the market.
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