Blackouts hit 13 states beyond Texas in deepening power crisis bnnbloomberg.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bnnbloomberg.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
There’s no respite this weekend for much of the U.S. with temperatures likely to hit new lows. Arctic cold is already gripping much of the interior, freezing natural gas pipelines
The arctic freeze gripping the central U.S. is raising the specter of power outages in Texas and ratcheting up pressure on energy prices already trading at unprecedented levels.
Big Freeze Threatens Texas With Blackouts as Markets Gyrate Bloomberg 2/14/2021 Naureen S. Malik, Brian K. Sullivan and Brian Eckhouse
(Bloomberg) The arctic freeze gripping the central U.S. is raising the specter of power outages in Texas and ratcheting up pressure on energy prices already trading at unprecedented levels.
In Texas, where temperatures in Dallas are forecast to be 3 degrees Fahrenheit Monday (minus 16 Celsius), the operator of the state’s power grid warned it may need to resort to rolling blackouts as surging demand for heat strains the electrical system. While outages may occur Sunday, the risk is higher on Monday and Tuesday, when officials expect power demand in Texas to reach a record high.
The arctic freeze gripping the central US is set to intensify, putting further pressure on energy prices already trading at unprecedented levels over the long holiday weekend.
Natural gas hit a record $600 per million British thermal units in Oklahoma. Temperatures fell so far below forecasts in parts of the central and western US that physical gas prices soared from California to the Rockies, with one hub in Cheyenne, Wyoming, reaching as high as $350 per mmBtu, according to traders who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
Heating and power plant fuel traded for as much as $195 per mmBtu in Southern California. If day-ahead electricity prices are any indication and the weather forecasts are even partly accurate, the run-up in energy prices isn’t over.