The Barrel

Is FERC being too mean to NERC?

Can FERC be too mean to NERC? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that is, with its recent audit of the North American Electric Reliability Corp. Some say FERC's audit was too harsh and too broad. Some even link it to President Barack Obama's "anti-carbon agenda." Whatever is true, the audit has highlighted a power struggle that may be inevitable. Just how much is FERC the boss of NERC?

Up 35 cents over nine trading days. Down 55 cents over the next seven days. In most other US markets, these would be considered serious moves. In the West Coast, it's almost just another day at the beach.

"It's the West Coast, man," one trading source said. "When you want to explain to someone why gasoline changed so much, just say, 'It's the West Coast, man.'"

It's also the nature of an increasingly refinery-driven market, and export-driven to a lesser extent.

Genscape, a company whose many activities include flying around Cushing, Oklahoma and figuring out from the sky how much oil is in the ocean of storage tanks there, has been taking a look at the Seaway Pipeline.

In a webinar held Tuesday morning, Genscape's Abudi Zein (full disclosure: a former Platts colleague) reviewed some of the many pictures his company has taken from the air or from satellite imagery over the 800 kilometers of the just-reversed Seaway Pipeline between Cushing and Freeport, Texas.

The $4 billion sale of Germany's Open Grid Europe pipeline system to banks and financial institutions in late May is a watershed moment in Europe's gas market.

The company that owned it, E.ON Ruhrgas, was one of the giants of the gas establishment, starting off in the middle of the last century to develop a formidable battery of pipelines, production assets and natural gas purchase and supply contracts.

How the 12,000 kilometer network develops in the future -- dislocated from the former parent company's gas procurement and supply business -- will be watched with close interest by those involved with Europe's energy markets.

On Thursday, the US Commerce Department ruled that Chinese companies are illegally dumping solar panels in the US, and called for 31% tariffs on imports from most Chinese panel makers.

But despite prophecies of doom and gloom on both sides of the case leading up to that decision, the ultimate outcome of the ruling may have a smaller impact on the US photovoltaic market than advocates predicted. 

Thursday, May 31, will mark a milestone in the US energy industry. That's my final day as a reporter for Platts Oilgram News, where the last eight years have capped a 44-year career in journalism. When they hear I have retired, some will say goodbye, some will say good riddance and others will call it the only good news I have ever reported. If I have done my job well, however, most won't even know who I am, never having been outraged enough by a misquote to double check the byline at the end of the story.