Natural gas slumps to $2.06/mmBtu, EIA reports

October 27, 2015 Wayne Barber Generation

On Oct. 27, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) price for November delivery of Henry Hub natural gas was $2.06/mmBtu.

That’s the lowest price in recent memory. For example, EIA said that the $2.06 price was 38 cents less than one week earlier and $1.56 less than one year ago.

The falling price continues to illustrate why natural gas has become the default choice for new baseload energy generation in the United States, beating out coal and nuclear power.

This latest low-water mark for natural gas comes one day after Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) announced that it plans to acquire Piedmont Natural Gas (NYSE:PNY) for roughly $4.9bn.

Piedmont Natural Gas is an energy services company primarily engaged in the distribution of natural gas to more than one million residential, commercial, industrial and power-generation utility customers in portions of North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Duke is already one of the partners with Piedmont in the Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC.

About Wayne Barber 4201 Articles
Wayne Barber, Chief Analyst for the GenerationHub, has been covering power generation, energy and natural resources issues at national publications for more than 20 years. Prior to joining PennWell he was editor of Generation Markets Week at SNL Financial for nine years. He has also worked as a business journalist at both McGraw-Hill and Financial Times Energy. Wayne also worked as a newspaper reporter for several years. During his career has visited nuclear reactors and coal mines as well as coal and natural gas power plants. Wayne can be reached at wayneb@pennwell.com.
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