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California Governor Wants Probe Into Soaring Natural Gas Prices as US LNG Exports to EU Set Records

© AFP 2023 / INA FASSBENDERIllustration shows lit gas stove burner.
Illustration shows lit gas stove burner. - Sputnik International, 1920, 07.02.2023
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Global natural gas prices skyrocketed in the spring of 2022 after the escalation of the crisis in eastern Ukraine into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy conflict. European nations exacerbated the situation by rejecting gas from Russia – which accounts for 1/5 of global production, in favor of more expensive US liquefied natural gas (LNG).
California Governor Gavin Newsome has asked the feds to launch a formal probe to figure out why natural gas prices in his state are so high.
“Since late November 2022, wholesale natural gas prices throughout the West have risen to alarming levels that greatly exceed prices in the rest of the country,” Newsom wrote in an address to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). “Electricity prices in the FERC-regulated California Independent System Operator Market and Western Energy Imbalance Market have similarly escalated because electricity prices are directly affected by wholesale natural gas costs,” the governor noted.
Expressing concern about residents “suffering the economic burden of extreme and unexpectedly high gas prices and electric bills,” and noting that California’s industry, agriculture, and water and wastewater utilities services and commercial sectors have also been impacted, Newsom noted that the price crunch is coming “on top of general inflationary pressures” already battering Californians.
Suggesting that cold weather alone “cannot explain the extent and longevity of the price spike,” Newsom asked the FERC to “immediately focus its investigatory resource on assessing whether market manipulation, anticompetitive behavior, or other anomalous activities are driving these ongoing elevated prices in the western gas markets.”
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Newsom has spent months engaging US energy companies in a running verbal battle, accusing them of “greedy” behavior and suggesting that oil, gasoline, and natural gas prices are high because producers are speculating on global market instability. Newsom’s approach echoes that of President Biden, who has blamed “Putin’s price hike” and “war profiteering” by oil companies for energy price hikes, and threatened to slap the latter with a windfall tax.
Observers took issue with Newsom’s demands for a probe, suggesting that the Ukraine crisis, constant US military engagements in the Middle East and Africa, and the sale of domestic natural gas supplies to Europe may have something to do with higher prices. Others suggested that a federal probe would only reveal that the White House is to blame for the crisis. Others still called on the governor to focus on how his own policies may have impacted prices, arguing that the state’s focus on "green" energy like solar power to the detriment of hydrocarbons, plus the closure of nuclear power plants, may play some role.
 President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House on Jan. 20, 2023.  - Sputnik International, 1920, 24.01.2023
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California, the US’ largest economy, imports nearly 90 percent of its natural gas, with the majority of its supplies traditionally produced in basins in Texas and New Mexico, plus Rocky Mountains states and Canada.
Spot prices for natural gas in southern California reached about $19.40 per million British thermal units (BTUs) last month, over four times the US national average of about $5.50 per million BTUs, and closer to the European average of $20.18 per million BTUs.
The United States ramped up LNG exports to Europe by nearly 140 percent in the first 11 months of 2022, with the region accounting for about three quarters of American exports.
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