Articles tagged New England

At the halfway point for 2024, U.S. natural gas demand is pacing for another record year, driven by increased demand from the power sector amid record-breaking weather trends, according to the American Gas Association (AGA).

TC Energy Corp. has inked a $1.14 billion agreement to sell the Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) to BlackRock Inc. and Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners as it pares debt and streamlines its North American pipeline business. 

National Grid plc has asked Massachusetts regulators to approve a deal with Constellation Energy Corp. that could keep the Everett LNG terminal open to serve almost one million East Coast natural gas customers during periods of peak demand.

Natural gas utilities in Massachusetts will be required to first evaluate clean energy projects before expanding their systems after state regulators issued limits on local distribution companies (LDC).

Still groggy from the holiday, natural gas futures struggled to find direction on Wednesday. Amid a supportive backdrop of near-term heat and softening drilling activity, a host of bearish factors ultimately proved too much to overcome. The August Nymex gas futures contract settled 5.2 cents lower than Monday’s settlement at $2.657/MMBtu.

Industry and government experts said to ensure New England has the energy resources available to ensure reliability in the winter, more natural gas infrastructure and transmission for renewables must be built. 

The power grid operator for New England, where natural gas makes up the majority of the energy resources, said there are adequate resources to meet the region’s electricity demands this summer under typical weather conditions. However, tight supply margins are possible if temperatures are hotter than expected.

Natural gas futures extended their gains on Monday as weather models continued to show cold over much of the Lower 48 for early to mid-March and Freeport LNG stayed on its path toward full operations. With some nascent technical momentum also in play, the newly prompt April Nymex natural gas contract settled at $2.731/MMBtu, up 18.3 cents from Friday. May futures climbed 15.2 cents to $2.853.

FERC last week approved new reliability standards to enhance grid reliability during extreme weather events such as Winter Storm Uri in February 2021. 

New England paid some of the highest natural gas prices on record last year amid pipeline constraints and stronger competition for LNG.