| Week Beginning November 21, 2022Western and Northern New York are digging out from historic snow totals over the weekend—some places hitting more than 70 inches. Many schools and government offices are closed Monday as the area continues to dig out. The largest railroad labor union has voted to reject a labor deal, meaning a strike is looming. If railroad workers strike, shipments will be delayed across the country. Those shipments could include fuel, holiday packages, and grocery items. Internationally, Sweden says it has discovered traces of explosives at the spots where the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were leaking in September. Many in Europe had suspected the gas leaks were the result of some sort of attack. Russia says it did not destroy the pipelines. |
| Heating oil prices were down $0.116 per gallon this week to $5.815 per gallon on the East Coast. That is up $2.400 per gallon from last year. Gasoline prices were up $0.021 per gallon on the East Coast this week to $3.611 per gallon. That is below the national average of $3.762 per gallon. Diesel prices are up slightly to an average of $5.474 per gallon on the East Coast from $5.473 per gallon last week. Propane prices are holding steady at $3.413 per gallon, down $0.001 per gallon from the previous week. |
| The NYMEX 12-month strip rose $0.20/dth on the week, making up part of the $0.33/dth drop from the previous week. Prices continued to bounce around during November on relatively stable supply/demand fundamentals. On the supply side, domestic production continues at around the 96-97 Bcf/day range, just above the average for this fall. Storage also came in around the expected range with an injection of 64 Bcf. This volume closed the deficit to the five-year average to just 0.2%, the smallest deficit since January of this year. The market is expecting this to be the last injection of the season and forecasting a withdrawal of 83 Bcf for the week in progress. The mild fall allowed the injection season to go two to three weeks longer than normal and wipe out the long-standing deficit to the five-year average. The market reacted as expected to the fall’s improving storage picture, falling about 30% from late August highs. On the demand side, the Freeport LNG plant that has been offline for months announced it now expects initial production at the facility to resume in mid-December. The market has been expecting that delay from the previous guidance of a November start for at least a few weeks now. Looking ahead, the market will continue to follow December temperature forecasts as the last part of November looks seasonally cool. Price action could be volatile as traders take time off during the shortened holiday week. |
| Power forwards jumped $8/MWh last week and are up again Monday morning. NY UCAP had some gains in the outer years across all zones, continuing its trend upward. NJ RECs were up about 5% for Class 1 and PA RECs were up 5% for Class 1 and 15% for Class 2. |
| Domino’s Pizza has agreed to purchase a fleet of electric vehicles for delivering its pizzas. Domino’s has ordered 800 branded Chevy Bolts to make their deliveries at over 30 franchise locations. |