NEW YORK: US West Coast power and natural gas prices have more than doubled over the past couple of weeks - with gas hitting multi-year highs - as freezing weather and snow blankets parts of California and gas pipeline outages and constraints limit flows of the fuel from Texas.
In Northern California, next-day gas for Friday at the PG&E Citygate jumped to around $32 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), its highest since hitting $44 in December 2000. That compares with a PG&E daily record of $53, which was also in December 2000. Gas at the Southern California (SoCal) Border rose to $31 per mmBtu, its highest since hitting $103 in February 2021 when Winter Storm Uri cut gas supplies from Texas and forced the Texas electric grid operator to impose rolling power outages.
That compares with a SoCal Border record of over $136, which was also during the 2021 February Freeze.
Next-day power at the Mid Columbia (Mid C) Hub in Washington State, Palo Verde in Arizona and SP-15 in Southern California all jumped to over $260 per megawatt hour (MWh), their highest since September.
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