May 10/2017
Natural gas supplies lag last year by 14 per cent
May 1, 2017 - Heating oil prices are down
Crude Oil Prices are down from their recent highs of June 2014 and Heating Oil is again competitively priced to other heating fuels, but you would never know it from the gas utility advertising campaigns. If you visit any gas utility website you will find they continue to promote conversions, just like they did when gas had a price advantage. Even with that price advantage gone, it is business as usual, with utilities still claiming to save homeowners heating fuel dollars with more environmentally friendly fuel. Neither is true any longer given lower heating oil prices and the realities of lower sulfur heating oil and Biodiesel component. In fact, new research has shown that ULSHO with B2 or higher concentration of Biodiesel is cleaner burning than natural gas over a 20 year time horizon.
The Sierra Club recently released a report detailing the unprecedented buildout of new gas infrastructure around the country and calling for its rejection, according to an announcement by the organization.
In the Northeast, where heating oil is most widely used, the natural gas industry is working to replace heating oil with natural gas and have natural gas customers paying the billions of dollars required to build out natural gas systems. Meanwhile, heating oil marketers are rapidly adopting ultra low sulfur heating oil and clean burning Bioheat® Fuel, which can heat homes with lower greenhouse gas emissions than natural gas.
The Sierra Club report concludes that if America is to meet its climate commitments, “We must reject any new proposed gas infrastructure buildout and plans for expansion,” the organization wrote in a press release.
“The science is clear: from extraction to production to consumption, gas is a dirty and dangerous fuel that produces significant amounts of pollution, threatens our climate, our clean air and water, and the health of our communities,” the Sierra Club wrote. “If the United States continues to approve new gas pipelines and power plants, and if the majority of politicians continue to spread the falsehood that gas is a clean fuel, we will fail to meet our climate commitments and put our future and our children’s future in peril from the climate crisis.”
Transitioning to natural gas “isn’t building a bridge to a cleaner future, it’s building a superhighway to climate disaster,” the press release states.
Gas Prices Are Up!
Gas Supplies Are Down!
Are Utility Gas Prices Being Manuipulated?
That's an issue Sentors Joseph Leiberman (D-Connecticut) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) both raised heading into the new year.
In a letter to the commodity Futures Trading, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commissions, Lieberman stated there was no reason for spot-market and futures prices to soar 55%, given the actual supply and demand conditions. "I urge you to initiate a full examination of the natural gas markets now," said Lieberman.
Senator Hatch annouced that he intends to hold Judiciary Committe meetings this year on whether the latest utility gas spike could be the product of collusive pricing or other unlawful activity."... if someone has been manipulating this market, they should go to jail," he stated.