![](media/image1.jpeg){width="8.75in" height="3.6055555555555556in"}U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

**Office of Energy Assurance**

**ENERGY ASSURANCE DAILY**

###### June 25, 2004

**Electricity**

**Salem 1 Nuclear-Power Plant at Full Power, Company Says**

The 1150 Megawatt unit was at 19% power yesterday due to maintenance on
the main turbine

generator pedestal.

Bloomberg News, 1535 June 25, 2004

**Con Edison, Union Talking \`Around-the-Clock\' to Avert Strike**

Consolidated Edison Inc., owner of New York City\'s electric utility,
and union officials are talking \`\`around-the-clock\'\' to avert a
strike by 8,600 workers at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, a union spokesman said.
\`\`We remain miles apart on major issues including wages, medical
benefits and pensions,\'\' said Steve Mangione, a spokesman for Local
1-2 of the Utility Workers Union of America. \`\`We continue to expect
productive discussions,\'\' the utility, which serves 3.1 million homes
and businesses in New York City and Westchester County, said in a
statement. Bloomberg News, 1019, June 25 2004

**New Gas-fired Power Plant Near Janesville, Wis., Goes Into Service**
The Calpine Riverside Energy Center is a dual fuel combined-cycle power
plant came online June 1 and is capable of producing 600 Megawatts of
power. This plant is the largest new power plant built in Wisconsin
since 1985 and is among the cleanest and most energy-efficient electric
generating facilities in the Midwest, Calpine officials said Tuesday.
Calpine also is currently constructing the Fox Energy Center, located in
Kaukauna, which will go online to serve Wisconsin Public Service Corp.
next year.
[http://powermarketers.netcontentinc.net/newsreader.asp?ppa=8knpp%5EZiqmntrvZUjf%7DGL%7Dbfej%5B%21](http://powermarketers.netcontentinc.net/newsreader.asp?ppa=8knpp^ZiqmntrvZUjf}GL}bfej%5B!)

**Reliant Energy to Provide 640 Megawatts of Generating Capacity to
California** Reliant Energy has reached agreement with the California
Independent System Operator (CAISO) to return 640 megawatts of
previously mothballed power generating capacity (Etiwanda Units 3 and 4)
back to service through December 2004. The two units will be designated
as \"reliability-must-run\" units.
<http://pro.energycentral.com/professional/news/power/news_article.cfm?id=4949556>

**New York, Connecticut Agree to Open Cross-Sound Cable**

The Cross-Sound power cable under the Long Island Sound will be
activated immediately under an agreement reached by New York and
Connecticut officials, New York Governor George Pataki said in a
statement. The 24-mile cable, which can carry enough power for 265,000
typical U.S. homes, has been idle for much of the past two years because
of a moratorium by the Connecticut state legislature on energy projects
crossing the Sound.

####### Bloomberg News, 1920 June 24, 2004

**Ontario to Expand Niagara Falls Power Output**

The Ontario government said on Friday it will beef up hydro-electricity
generation from Niagara Falls by 1.6 terrawat-hours, enough power to
meet the needs of 160,000 homes. Construction on the project is expected
to start in the fall of 2005 and finish in 2009. The government provided
no cost estimate. The announcement follows warnings of a severe power
crunch in Ontario over the next few years and plans by the Liberal
government to decommission polluting coal-fired stations, which produce
about a quarter of the province\'s electricity, by 2007.

Reuters 1305 June 25, 2004

####### Petroleum

**Crude Oil Has Biggest Weekly Drop in 3 Months as Strike Ends**

Crude oil (August Contract) fell in New York, having the biggest weekly
drop in three months, after the Norwegian government halted a week-old
strike that cut more than 10 percent of production by the world\'s
third-largest exporter. Output from Norwegian oil fields in the North
Sea should return to normal within a day or two, said Per Terje Vold,
managing director of the Norwegian Oil Industry Association, in an
interview. The government imposed a settlement after employers yesterday
threatened to lock out workers, a move that would have shut all
Norwegian oil production. \`\`With the strike over, this takes a lot of
the impetus for higher prices out of the market,\'\' said Martin King, a
commodity analyst at FirstEnergy Capital Corp. in Calgary. \`\`What
could have been a big shutdown has been brought down to zero.\'\'

Bloomberg news, 1555 June 25, 2004

**Norway Ends Eight-Day Oil Strike**\
Norway\'s government ordered an immediate halt to an eight-day oil and
gas strike on Friday, averting a shutdown of output by the world\'s
number three crude exporter. \"Such an escalation\...would have entailed
huge economic consequences to society,\" Social and Labour Affairs
Minister Dagfinn Hoybraaten said after invoking controversial emergency
laws to foil a threatened production halt from Monday night. The strike,
over pensions and job security, had lopped 375,000 barrels per day (bpd)
off Norway\'s output but employers had upped the stakes by threatening a
virtual full shutdown by locking out about 3,000 unions members from
Monday. <http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040625/energy_norway_2.html>
[http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid=%7B4884BE32%2D8669%2D4C53%2D905F%2D227E04A80DC0%7D](http://www.marketwatch.com/news/yhoo/story.asp?source=blq/yhoo&siteid=yhoo&dist=yhoo&guid={4884BE32-8669-4C53-905F-227E04A80DC0})
<http://www.platts.com/Oil/News/2336499.xml?S=n>

**Train and Tanker Truck Collide by Chalmette Refinery, Refinery OK**

A serious accident in which a tanker truck, possibly hauling gasoline,
was struck by a train adjacent to ExxonMobil\'s Chalmette refinery has
apparently had no impact on refinery operations, the company and local
fire officials\
have said.\
OPIS Price Watch Alert, 1248 June 25, 2004

**OPEC Production Set to Rise to Highest Since Oil Shocks**

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members are
expected this month to achieve their highest level of production in 25
years. However, spare global capacity is now at its thinnest in decades.
Analysts estimate that OPEC-10 members will increase about 800,000
barrels a day from last month, in an attempt to satisfy the world\'s
steepest annual increase in oil demand in 24 years. \"If oil demand
continues to grow as strongly as it has over the past year and a half,
OPEC\'s spare production capacity will soon be eroded, requiring
significant increases to oil output sooner rather than later,\"
according to consultancy group the Center for Global Energy Studies. The
increase has helped replace some of the supplies lost from Iraq, where
output was halted again last week after three sabotage attacks on the
main export pipeline to Basra. Julian Lee, an energy analyst at the
Center for Global Energy Studies, says the oil market is likely to
remain tight for the rest of the year, with Iraqi supply disruptions
seen continuing and fear of disruptions from other oil producers, in
particularly Nigeria and Venezuela, likely to keep markets nervous.\
[http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1645145-609
8-0,00.html](http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1645145-6098-0,00.html)

**California Oil & Gas Output Slips as Fields Show Their Age**

California's oil and natural gas production slipped in the first
quarter, according to data released this week by the California
Department of Conservation, as onshore fields in the central California
San Joaquin Basin continued to show their age. California is the third
largest oil producing state, after Alaska and Texas. Average crude oil
production for the first quarter dropped to 736,000 barrels per day
compared to 748,000 b/d in the previous quarter

and 769,000 b/d in the first quarter of 2003, an annual decline of 4.4%.
Oil Daily, June 25, 2004

#### Natural Gas 

Nothing to report.

####### Other

**Funding for Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump Cut by U.S. House**

The U.S. House of Representatives, seeking to accommodate other spending
programs next year, passed a bill that cuts President George W. Bush\'s
funding request for a permanent nuclear waste dump in Yucca Mountain,
Nevada, by about \$750 million. The \$28 billion fiscal 2005 energy and
water appropriations bill sets aside \$131 million for the Yucca
facility, less than one-sixth the amount sought. Bloomberg News, 1511
June 25, 2004

**Energy Prices**

+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
|                               | **Latest  | **Week    | **Year     |
|                               | (6        | Ago**     | Ago**      |
|                               | /25/04)** |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **CRUDE OIL**                 | 37.34     | 38.68     | 29.18      |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **West Texas Intermediate     |           |           |            |
| US**                          |           |           |            |
|                               |           |           |            |
| \$/Barrel                     |           |           |            |
+-------------------------------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| **NATURAL GAS**               | 6.28      | 6.48      | 5.19       |
|                               |           |           |            |
| **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