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7 comments on EuroNews: November 17, 2006

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nrgyman2000 on November 17, 2006 - 7:45pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
TOD EUROPE looks promising!

A TOD EUROPE focusing on energy and related matters for Europe is very welcome.

Europe is more dependent on energy imports than the US, and energy imports relative growth is expected to be higher for Europe than for the US in the years to come.
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The business with the nuclear power stations in the UK are IMO serious, as this could increase demand for electricity from nat gas, and I expect the nat gas situation in the UK to become (mildly put) very, very tight during Jan/Feb of this heating season. As far as I can understand even worse than last heating season, even with the gas storage at Rough operating satisfactorily.

Judging from the web page to National Grid (which is updated daily) it looks that so far, this fall has been warmer than normal, but still the nat gas consumption has been running close to a normal weather pattern.

This could suggest higher weather adjusted nat gas consumption.

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Chris Vernon on November 17, 2006 - 8:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Judging from the web page to National Grid (which is updated daily) it looks that so far, this fall has been warmer than normal, but still the nat gas consumption has been running close to a normal weather pattern.
Good of you to spot that, even though it's been warm we're following the normal curve, how can this be? It's because the normal forecast curve is a lot lower this year than it was last year... some 10% lower in fact! A more suspicious soul than I might say that forecast demand curves are lower so the books balance before the winter, then if demand runs high and problems ensue it'll just look like extra cold weather.

Here's the live National Grid page: Daily Summary Report

Here's the normal demand curve for last winter:

And here are the curves for this winter:

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Euan Mearns on November 18, 2006 - 10:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Chris, this is a somewhat cynical view of how our country is run.

And NGM2 - are you doing anything with the UK gas supplies data you were working on.  I've been down the DTI office transcribing by hand the pre-1995 gas production data - cos that's not on their web site.

Should also mention, in London last week - one of the speakers used a number of your slides - they were acredited - but folks were wondering who you were.

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nrgyman2000 on November 18, 2006 - 11:57am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Chris and Euan

Yes, I confirm that I am in the process of putting together a draft about historical (from about 1996 till about now) UK nat gas supplies with a look into the near future, towards 2010. As you are aware UK nat gas supplies are very complex and it is time-consuming to put together a good presentation from several open sources (among them DTI, BP statistical Review, Norwegian Official statistics and press releases from buyers and sellers of (Norwegian) nat gas) that can stand up to the verification of independent third parties.

I can tell you this much that the report describes a supply situation that mildly put will become ugly and stay this way (and has the potential to grow worse) for many years.

I sincerely hope to be proven wrong on this, but by following the UK nat gas supply situation for some time coupled with a strong professional background from nat gas logistics (among a lot of other professional exposures within the oil and gas operators) for several years have made me arrive to these dire conclusions.

Due to recent other higher prioritised activities, the progress on this for the last 4 - 5 weeks has been slow, but it now looks like I could have a draft ready by the next few days about this subject. (I think this is far more important to publish and initiate discussions on than the other post I am working on.)

The development in the UK nat gas supply situation will also affect Continental Europe from next summer (more details and reasoning in subject report) as UK for some years has been net exporter of nat gas to Continental Europe and Ireland.

Judging from the demand curves published on the National Grid web page and present storage level (4 000 million cubic meters) and that present flow into UK is running steady at 300 million cubic meters a day, it could be that storage facilities could be emptied by second half of February under normal weather (consumption) conditions.

You can make independent assessments and see for yourself what you arrive at.

I will forward you both a copy of this report (draft) and then you can evaluate if it's worthy to publish on TOD Europe.  

I will as earlier promises complete my post on development in net global oil exports and how the price increases redistributes the flow between OECD, China and ROW (Rest Of World) for posting on TOD. Truth is I have been kept quit busy for a while.

I was made aware that Chris Skrebowski had used (kindly and wisely) several of the diagrams developed by me for www.energikrise.blogspot.com in his presentation at the EI on Nov. 07.

A lot of people (I mean really a lot) are wondering about my true identity, and I have for some time, and will continue for the foreseeable future to use anonymity through the signature Energimann.

(Sorry if my English is a little slippery to day, truth is I am in a hurry to meet several friends for some well-deserved beers accompanied with some "Akevitt" chasers.)

Regards
Energimann

NGM2

By the way I could use a crash course on some HTML codes used for posting comments on TOD.

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Chris Vernon on November 18, 2006 - 12:51pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Judging from the demand curves published on the National Grid web page and present storage level (4 000 million cubic meters) and that present flow into UK is running steady at 300 million cubic meters a day, it could be that storage facilities could be emptied by second half of February under normal weather (consumption) conditions.
Personally I don't give any credibility to weather forecasts more than two weeks out, however your mention of February reminded me of the NetWeather winter forecast:


Click for full details

They are suggesting February could be the coldest since 1991.

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GreenEconomist on November 18, 2006 - 4:37pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hi all, my first post after lurking at TOD and TOD UK for ages! Great work you are all doing. The gas graphs are interesting and I thought I'd just ask a question... we are connecting around 100,000(?) properties to the gas mains each year in the UK - primariliy as a result of new builds, so wouldn't you expect to see constant rising demand for gas? (or do changes in demand for electricity generation, industry etc swamp any domestic use changes?)  I suppose on the negative side of things, every 5% rise in fuel prices results in a further 30,000 households being pushed back into fuel poverty and reducing their use of gas and electricity. And fuel prices have gone up by more than 5% over the last year. Regarding the weather - it has certainly been mild until a week or so ago in Scotland, where I am, and at work the office delayed switching on the gas boiler by a month  (though it was burning through the gas on Friday - what with it snowing outside!).
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