Road To New England -- Electric Rate Hikes -- And It's All About LNG -- December 7, 2022

After posting the original post below, a read sent me this story from New Hampshire.  

A tanker full of liquefied natural gas heads to New England’s largest electricity generator. Then, it abruptly changes course, abandoning its North American contract for a higher bidder in Europe.

Scenarios like this are driving up energy costs across New England, experts warn. And that makes it nearly impossible to predict just how expensive electricity will become this winter. 

“It all comes down to liquefied natural gas,” said Sam Evans-Brown, executive director of Clean Energy New Hampshire. The current market volatility, Evans-Brown said, is making electricity both expensive and hard to purchase.

And now, it’s time for two of the state’s utilities to do exactly that: go to market and purchase energy for a six-month period that starts in February. But energy experts are concerned that a routine process could go haywire given this market volatility. 

Rates are already at all-time historic highs – and there’s no indication that the new rates will provide any relief to those already struggling with high energy costs. For example, when this process played out in Connecticut, rates went from 12 cents per kilowatt hour to 24 cents. In Western Massachusetts, rates went from 15.3 cents to 22 cents, while the eastern part of the state went from 17 to 25.5 cents. Right now, Eversource’s New Hampshire rates are already 22 cents, a rate that’s been in effect since August.

Much, much more at the link.

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Original Post

Engie: this is pretty cool. Yesterday on the blog:

December 6, 2022: Sempra signs LNG supply deal with Engie for Port Arthur project

• Engie: French power company
• Phase 1 of the proposed Port Arthur LNG project under development
• Engie will purchase 875 metric tones / year; 15-year term

The obvious question was not asked. What else is Engie up to?

Glad you asked.

Link here. 

Note: Engie (French) is now buying LNG from the United States.

What makes this so interesting is this: do you all remember that great story and that great map from January 29, 2018 -- three years ago?

At that time, New England was importing Russian LNG transiting through the French Engie terminal.

So, we now have New England competing with Europe for US LNG from the Permian. 

From that January 29, 2018, story:

From Bloomberg today: as first LNG tanker from Siberia awaits landing in Boston, a second ship may be coming.

A second tanker carrying Russian natural gas may be on the way to the U.S., following in the footsteps of a ship now sitting near Boston Harbor with a similar cargo.

The Gaselys tanker, which has been sitting for two days in the waters outside of Boston, carries liquefied natural gas originally produced in Siberia, according to vessel tracking data. The ship, poised to dock at Engie SA's Everett import terminal, would be the first LNG shipment from anywhere other than Trinidad and Tobago in about three years.
Now Engie is poised to pick up a second Russian cargo from northern France that may land in Massachusetts on Feb. 15, according to Kpler SAS, a cargo-tracking company.

The tankers would arrive at a time when New England is paying a hefty premium for supplies as pipeline capacity limits flows of cheap shale gas from other parts of the country in the peak demand season.

The tanker named Provalys was sailing to France's Dunkirk terminal to pick up LNG on Friday and unload a small amount of it nearby in Belgium before heading across the Atlantic, the cargo tracker said. Engie couldn't be immediately reached for comment about this shipment.

Gaselys loaded its cargo at the Isle of Grain terminal near London, where another tanker had unloaded the Russian LNG. French energy giant Engie bought the cargo on the spot market "due to the high natural gas demand during the recent record cold snap," Carol Churchill, a spokeswoman at Engie's Everett terminal said in an email Wednesday.

Again, unless I missed it, Bloomberg does not mention the de facto natural gas pipeline moratorium in New England.