Toshiba International Corporation (TIC), the US subsidiary of Toshiba's thermal power generation business, has won a major order from Burns & McDonnell Engineering to supply and install components to retrofit a 800 MW steam turbine at the Ottumwa Generating Station in Iowa, US.
Global Power Equipment Group said it "remains optimistic regarding future prospects for new natural gas-fired power generation projects", despite posting a drop in Q2 revenue to $94.7 million, down from $138.3 million due to shipment delays and reduced maintenance services.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Environmental & Chemical Engineering (MHIEC) has won an order from Oita City, Japan, to modify operation at a large-scale municipal waste-to-energy plant with a view to extending the operational lifetime and advance energy-savings.
Japan's high gas-to-power to backfill nuclear generation capacity will be a key driver to prolong the diversion of LNG cargoes from Europe to Asia until 2015, UK investment bank Barclays said in a research note.
South Korea's POSCO Engineering and Construction has won an order worth $700 million to build a 300MW steam power generation plant and a transformer station in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
Doubts on the effectiveness of the energy bill have been raised by the industry. The reform "comes too late" and regulations are "unclear", is the verdict of some investors: "We have long been pushing for greater clarity on the detailed design of the EMR proposals, and greater expediency in the process as a whole," Volker Beckers, chief executive of RWE npower said in a statement to Gas to Power Journal.
Power generation companies have built fewer power plants in the US during the first six months of 2012. New-build capacity dropped by 927 MW as operators realised 54 plant units less than in the first half of 2011, according to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Facing up what it calls the "Red Tap Challenge", the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced it will scrap unnecessary regulation with the aim of stipulating 100 billion pounds of investment in the electricity sector.
Spot-price elements in long-term gas purchase contracts (LTCs) are required for new gas power projects to ensure enough gas is supplied at a sufficiently low price. "Since the end of 2008, the price level of supply contracts for [gas fired power plants] has often been above the level required for a commercially attractive use in power generation," Uli Brunner, energy expert, PA Consulting Group told Gas to Power Journal.
Footprint Power LLC has officially completed its acquisition of the Salem Harbor Power Station from Dominion Energy Inc. for an undisclosed sum. New Jersey-based Footprint Power plans to demolish the 61-year old coal plant and build a new gas-fired plant on the same site.
German utility E.ON said today it expects its first-half underlying net income to be around EUR 3.3bn, more than trippling in value from EUR 0.9bn in the previous year.
Swiss power and automation group ABB has won a $40 million order from Al Toukhi Group, a Saudi engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company, to supply high-voltage gas-insulated switchgear to a expand power grid capacity in Saudi Arabia.
The profit margin of gas-fired power plants in Germany has dropped to a 4-year low, as the clean spark spread for baseload 2013 delivery has plunged to minus Eur8/MWh at the end of last week. Utilities can only operate their gas plants profitably for generating power for higher priced peak load hours between 8am and 8pm local time.
The Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is facing further cuts in gas supply from the Reliance-operated Krishna-Godavari basin which will reduce gas-to-power generation by another 400-700 MW, exacerbating the energy shortage in the region.
The price advantage of US LNG exported to Europe over gas prices at the UK National Balancing Point (NBP) is seen to drop to "virtually nil" over the 2016-2020 period. The lack of a price discount means that "US LNG exports cannot directly displace gas into Europe, but could free up flexible LNG supplies which otherwise would have been imported into Asia," analyst Michael Lewis said in a report today.
News in Brief
Quarrels over contract award
June 26 – Guam Power Authority’s decision to award a contract to finance, build and operate a new 180 MW power station on the island to Korea Electric Power has sparked protest by rival bidders. Four companies had submitted proposals – Korea Electric, Osaka Gas, Powerflex and Hanwha Energy Corp. Declining to comment on the quarrels over the contract awarding process, GPA said the deal with Korea Electric is expected to be closed by September 9, pending a related impact study.
PTT steps up power sector investment
June 25 – Thailand's state-run PTT Pcl has decided to boost investments in the retail and industrial power sectors to help insulate the energy company against the impact of a global economic slowdown on its oil refining and chemical businesses. Referring to the Sino-U.S. trade war as a global challenge, PTT chief executive Chansin Treenuchagron said the company is looking “how we can survive in the short term.”
APR helps power Libya’s recovery
June 24 – Libya’s state-owned GECOL has asked APR Energy to bring in temporary generators to provide a rapid 450 MW boost. Under the latest contracts, APR provided mobile gas turbines at four key sites in Libya (250 MW) as well as 200 MW of diesel generators at two sites.
GE supplies SCADA to New Zealand
June 21 – GE’s Renewable Energy Grid Solution’s business has won an order from two New Zealand utilities to upgrade their traditional Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems with GE’s Advanced Distribution Management Solutions (ADMS). The orders were placed by Top Energy Ltd with some 31,000 customers and Northpower serving over 60,000 customers, though the contract values were not disclosed.
Top 5 OEMs to rule two thirds of global wind market
June 20 – After a decade of fragmentation, the top 5 turbine OEMs are consolidating again and Wood Mackenzie anticipates key players will surpass a combined market share of 68% by 2020, up from 47% five years ago. Vestas, SGRE and GE remain the top 3 wind turbine producers wwhile the Chinese leaders, Goldwind and Envision, are becoming increasingly popular due to their product reliability and track record.
Keane to merge with C&J Energy
June 19 – Oil- and gasfield service providers C&J Energy Services and Keane Group have agreed a merger-of-equals in a $746 deal that will give the two companies the necessary uplift in an industry burdened by budget cuts of hydrocarbon producers. The 50:50 merger will create a company will create a company with a combined enterprise value of $1.8 billion, including $255 million in debt. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.
Evol LNG helps power Australian gold mine
June 18 – Kirkalocka Gold Mine in Western Australia will use Evol LNG to fuel Zenith Energy’s 14.5 MW power station with regasified natural gas starting from September 2019. The mine is run by Adaman Resources and had been relying on diesel to cover its energy needs. Based on the current diesel price, Adaman Resources expects to reduce fuel costs by more than A$13 million (US$9 million) during the first six years of operation of the new onsite LNG-to-Power plant.
Shell Energy ordered to refund overcharged UK customers
June 17 – UK energy regulator Ofgem has ordered Shell Energy Retail to refund around 12000 customers who were overcharged after the Government’s cap on gas and electricity prices came into force in January. Shell Energy Retail s agreed to refund these customers by paying £29,000 in compensation (£5 per fuel), and also pay an additional £200,000 into Ofgem’s voluntary redress fund.
BASF enters battery market
June 14 – German chemical company BASF is using NGK Insulators’ sodium sulfur batteries as its entry point into the energy market. The Japanese manufacturer NGK is currently the only maker of the large-scale sodium sulfur (NAS) batteries, capable to store several hours of energy. A joint project in northern Germany uses NAS batteries that store energy for five hours, while a recently completed project in Abu Dhabi using 108MW / 648MWh of the systems with a full six hours storage duration.
CNPC boosts domestic gas production
June 13 – China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the largest Chinese oil and gas company, has announced plans for domestic natural gas output to reach 55% of overall domestic supply by 2025. Last year, CNPC managed to boost production by 5.9% to reach 138.02 billion cubic metres, while also increasing imports of pipeline gas and LNG.
Gazprom taps new gas deposits for Nord Stream 2
June 12 – Gazprom is fast-tracking hydrocarbon production in northwest Russia to boost reserves for export through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline (55 Bcm/y), currently being built through the Baltic Sea. At a meeting with Nord Stream shareholders, Gazprom noted that its Yuzhno-Russkoye field has yielded about 276 Bcm of natural gas, including 0.9 Bcm of hard-to-recover Turonian gas, since the start of operations. Turonian gas reserves, consisting of about 99% methane with no heavy residues, lie at a depth of 800–850 meters in reservoirs with low permeability. Commercial production at the Turonian deposit is scheduled to start in late 2019.
PG&E turns off electricity to avoid wild fires
June 11 – Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has turned off electricity for some Californian communities at risk of a wildfire during the lastest heat wave. The authorized blackout started on Saturday in Napa, Solano and Yolo counties, with electricity being gradually restored over the course of Monday. Approximately 16,000 customers have been affected.
Gazprom to build power plants in Serbia
June 10 – Gazprom Energoholding has signed an Agreement of Intent (AoI) to build an upgrade several gas-fired power plants in Serbia. Together with Novi Sad, Gazprom Energoholding is already building a CCGT with some 200 MW capacity near a refinery in the Serbian town of Pancevo.
U.S. fund splashes out $4bn to buy El Paso Electric
June 7 – Infrastructure Investment Fund (IIF), a private investment vehicle within J.P. Morgan Inc., has agreed to acquire the U.S. utility El Paso Electric Co for $68.25 per share in a cash transaction. The enterprise value on the transaction is estimated at $4.3 billion. El Paso Electric customers will receive a total $21 million in bill credits over three years.
Caterpillar gensets back up Finnish data center
June 6 – The Swedish telecom giant Telia has ordered 12 Caterpillar gensets to provide standby emergency power to back up operations at its new data center in Helsinki. The Cat dealer Witraktor figured a system which includes eight Cat 3516B and four 3516E generator sets. The Telia Helsinki Data Center is the largest such facility in Finland, and its primary electric power supply comes from a combination of wind, hydroelectric and biomass.
Capstone wins orders in Iraq
June 5 – Micro-turbine producer Capstone has secured an order for two C600 Signature Series microturbines to provide 1.2 MW of energy to power a triethylene glycol (TEG) dehydration facility near Basra, in southern Iraq. The contract also includes Capstone’s new self-cleaning pulse filtration system, allowing the turbines to better withstand hot and sandy conditions with minimal maintenance.
Gas to supply record 43% of US power needs
June 4 – This summer, natural gas is forecast to cover between 40% and 43% of 2019 peak electricity demand in all U.S. states except Texas, according to projections by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Gas demand soared to nearly 10,700 billion cubic feet (Bcf) last summer, a 16% rise from 2017 levels. Should there be another heat wave this year, that record may well be broken. Capacity wise, natural gas is on course to top its 45% share in the U.S. power mix.
