![](media/image1.jpeg){width="8.5in"
height="3.5027777777777778in"}**jU.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY**

**Office of Energy Assurance**

**ENERGY ASSURANCE DAILY**

**September 2, 2004**

**Highlights/Major Developments**

**Hurricane Update
[(Tracker)](http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_astorm6+shtml/022053.shtml?)**

**Floridians Brace for Frances**

Nearly 1.2 million Floridians were urged to leave their homes on
Thursday as massive and powerful Hurricane Frances roared toward the
crowded southeast U.S. coast. Nine Florida counties ordered evacuations
from low-lying coastal areas and mobile homes that could be devastated
by the storm. Highway tolls were suspended and on the Beeline Expressway
in central Florida, lanes were reversed to speed the long lines of
traffic fleeing the coast. In the three most populous Florida counties,
Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, authorities told 810,000 people to
leave. Frances lashed the southeastern Bahamas with 145 mph (235 kph)
winds on Thursday and threatened to deliver a huge blow to Florida just
three weeks after the state's other coast was hit by Hurricane Charley.
Almost the entire east coast of Florida was under a hurricane warning,
meaning hurricane conditions would be expected in the next 24 hours.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group said it was evacuating about 175 non-essential
personnel from rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as a "precautionary measure"
because of Hurricane Frances.

Reuters, September 2, 2004, 1353

**FPL Activates Emergency Plan, May Shut Down Nukes**

**As Frances Bears Down On Florida's East Coast**

Florida Power & Light Company has activated its comprehensive storm
emergency plan to deal with anticipated damages and outages due to
Hurricane Frances. As the hurricane bears down on Florida\'s East coast,
FPL urges customers to take steps to be safe and protect family before
and after the storm.

"Every hurricane is unique, and Frances is a major storm that is
widespread and slow moving," said Geisha Williams, vice president of
electrical distribution for FPL. Because of the intensity of this storm,
expected to batter Florida\'s East Coast with category four winds and
heavy rain, FPL is preparing to tackle widespread damage to its
transmission and distribution lines as well as other facilities such as
substations and power plants. As a result, customers in all affected
areas should expect long delays in restoration of service. FPL also said
it will probably shut two of its four nuclear reactors on the state's
east coast if Hurricane Frances maintains its forecast path. The St.
Lucie and Turkey Point nuclear plants could potentially be in the path
of Hurricane Frances. St. Lucie has two units and can produce around
1,678 megawatts of electricity. Turkey Point also has two units and can
produce a total of about 1,386 MW.

Business Wire, Wednesday September 1, 0634

**Electricity**

## Power Plant in York County, Pa., Must Submit Plan to Nuclear Regulators

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has requested that officials at Peach
Bottom Atomic Power Station Unit 2 submit in writing plans to address
inadequate corrective actions for known equipment problems. The
cross-cutting issue includes two "green" violations of very low safety
significance listed within the commission\'s mid-cycle performance
review and inspection plan of the power station. Next month, a team from
the NRC will travel to the plant to run an additional inspection on Unit
2 to determine how Exelon has responded to \"white\" performance
indicators found in the third quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of
2004.

<http://www.energycentral.com/centers/news/daily/article.cfm?aid=5090511>

<http://pro.energycentral.com/professional/news/power/news_article.cfm?id=5090511>

**Petroleum**

## Citgo Refinery Unit Down Due to Leak

Lyondell Citgo's Houston refinery shut a hydro-desulfurization unit on
Tuesday because of a leak, the company reported to the Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality. There was no estimate given on the duration of
the outage at the 260,000 bpd refinery, and Lyondell Citgo officials
were not available for comment on Wednesday.

The Oil Daily, September 2, 2004

## OPEC Can\'t Boost Oil Output Soon, Official Says

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries can take no action for
now to boost supply and will discuss ways to expand future investment in
the industry at a meeting later this month, a Libyan official said. OPEC
meets to set output policy Sept. 15 in Vienna and afterward hosts a
seminar with international oil companies. With oil prices rising, the
group is pumping more than its quota and is reaching the limit of its
production capacity. As part of plans to increase future supply, Libya,
OPEC\'s eighth-largest producer, offered 15 sites for oil and gas
exploration last month in its first auction of licenses since U.S.
sanctions were lifted. OPEC may find it "difficult" to raise its
oil-output quota in Vienna this month without more evidence that the
extra oil that members are pumping is being used, El-Aswad said. The
quota, or ceiling, covers 10 members of the group, all except Iraq.

Bloomberg, September 2, 2004, 0840

**Natural Gas**

## California to Let Sempra, Other Utilities Import Liquefied Gas

Sempra Energy and other California utility owners won approval from
state regulators to import liquefied natural gas to help meet increasing
demand for the fuel. The California Public Utilities Commission approved
such imports in a 3-2 vote in San Francisco. The decision allows Sempra,
owner of the largest U.S. gas utility, and other companies to include
fuel shipped from Russia and other producing regions overseas in their
long-term supply contracts.

Bloomberg, September 2, 2004

**Other News**

Nothing to report.

## 

**Energy Prices**

+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
|                               | **Latest  | **Week    | **Year     |
|                               | (         | Ago**     | Ago**      |
|                               | 9/2/04)** |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **CRUDE OIL**                 | 44.04     | 43.06     | 29.57      |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **West Texas Intermediate     |           |           |            |
| US**                          |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Barrel                     |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **NATURAL GAS**               | 4.75      | 5.19      | 4.62       |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **Henry Hub**                 |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Million Btu                |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+

> Source: Reuters

**This Week in Petroleum** from the Energy Information Administration
(EIA)

[*http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp*](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp)

Updated on Wednesdays

**Weekly Petroleum Status Report** from EIA**\
**[*http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/wpsr.html*](http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/wpsr.html)

Updated after 1:00pm (Eastern time) on Wednesdays

**Natural Gas Weekly Update** from EIA

[*http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp*](http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp)

Updated after 2:00 pm (Eastern time) on Thursdays