This Was Not On My Bingo Card -- More Expensive To Charge EVs Overnight Than Fill-Up With Gasoline -- December 14, 2022

SRE "never" trades pre-market. Today it's up 1.6%; up $2.69; trading at $167.35 (it's a $124-stock) -- pre-market.

ISO CA: link here -- -- $390 / mWh -- overnight -- EV charging a disaster --  from RBN Energy below

Last week, even as natural gas day-ahead prices went negative in the Permian’s Waha Hub in West Texas, spot prices at northern California’s PG&E Citygate last week traded at a record-smashing $55/MMBtu, according to the NGI Daily Gas Price Index — close to 100x the Waha price.

The media: The LA Times explains the high price -- drought, sudden winter storm, etc., but never mentions the Biden energy doctrine: "No more drilling; ban fracking; and shut down pipelines.  

NaturalGasIntel: from a couple of days ago. Archived.

Against a backdrop of mostly mild weather across the Lower 48, winter unleashed its fury on the West Coast a bit early this season. The frigid temperatures and unusually heavy precipitation have fueled natural gas demand at a time when storage inventories are low, a drought has reduced hydro-electric power supplies and regional utilities are having trouble receiving coal deliveries.

The result: historically high natural gas prices that have surged to levels not seen since the summer of 2018. The surge in prices has spread across the Pacific Northwest, farther south throughout California and inland across the Rockies.

On Thursday, Northern California’s PG&E Citygate recorded spot natural gas prices as high as $36.00/MMBtu. SoCal Citygate cash reached a $33.00 high, while Malin hit $32.00. And that only proved to be batting practice.

On Friday, the highest price on the West Coast hit $55.00, with offers up to $60.00.

“I’ve seen prices spike before, but over a short period of time,” said Michael Wiliamson. His consulting firm Williamson Energy purchases wholesale natural gas for end-use customers in California. “This sustained period of high prices has never happened before. There’s a lot of different things going on, and they’re all falling at the same time.”

Then the writer blames everything but the Biden doctrine.

See RBN Energy today:

This is just the latest instance of severe gas supply shortages and constraint-driven price disruptions out West in recent years (even ignoring Winter Storm Uri and the Deep Freeze of February 2021). Moreover, it’s arguably taking progressively more benign market events to trigger similar or worse shortages. What’s going on? In today’s RBN blog, we break down the factors driving the latest Western U.S. gas price spikes.