Berkshire Hathaway energy unit MidAmerican Power Holdings has agreed to buy wind turbines with an estimated value of more than $1bln from Siemens. IFM Investors has agreed to invest $1.3 billion in equity funding for the proposed three-train Freeport LNG natural gas liquefaction and export plant in Texas, sourced from a consortium of project finance ledners. The funding in question… Keep reading →
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway bought 40.1MM shares of ExxonMobil for $3.45bln, and now holds about 0.9% of the company’s stock. UK’s BG has sold additional interests in its Queensland Curtis LNG project in Australia to China National Offshore Oil Corp. for $1.93 billion, and to supply the state-controlled Chinese firm with an additional 5 million tons per year of LNG… Keep reading →
Jellyfish in the cooling water intake have forced the shutdown of Sweden’s largest nuclear reactor, which generates about 10% of the country’s electricity. As bizarre as this sounds, jellyfish have caused problems at power plants in several countries, including the US. [CNN] Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that state-controlled energy company Petronas is going… Keep reading →
Marshall Steam Station, just 30 miles from Charlotte, North Carolina, was the most efficient coal-fired power plant in the United States when it opened in 1966, and maintained its position as best in class until 1974.
The 2,000MW plant is a small part of Duke Energy’s 58,200MW fleet of electric power capacity,
which serves seven million customers in the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. Keep reading →
Duke Energy and Progress Energy said Monday that they have accepted federal regulators’ conditions for completing their merger and hope to close the deal by Sunday. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled earlier this month that the utility companies could combine their operations, but only if they meet conditions designed to ensure that the company wouldn’t exercise undue influence over the power markets in the Carolinas. Duke and Progress are also working to secure approval from regulators in North Carolina and South Carolina by this weekend. The all-stock deal, announced in January 2011 and valued at about $26 billion, would create the nation’s largest utility. Duke, of Charlotte, N.C., serves 4 million customers in the Carolinas, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, operates wholesale power and renewable-energy businesses and has international operations in Brazil and elsewhere.
The power industry has conducted a complex dance of consolidation and division over the past few decades in response to technological disruption, regulatory trends and financial shifts.
Recent years have brought about a new wave of consolidation and utility bankers have been busy ushering companies into new larger footprints through buying complementary assets rather than embarking on broad new competition-based construction and infrastructure investment programs. Constellation is now part of Exelon, and Duke Energy is adding further to its portfolio with the acquisition of Progress Energy, the two highest-profile deals in a spate of transactions all the more surprising for the tightness in financial markets since the 2008 crisis. Keep reading →
The US utility industry will look fundamentally different within the next forty years as a paradigm shift transforms the sector, the chief of one of the country’s largest energy providers said.
“We’re going to reinvent our business, we’re going to adopt new technologies,” said Jim Rogers, Duke Energy CEO. “When you look at our company four decades from now it will to look fundamentally different. Keep reading →
Nuclear plant operators around the world are helping to meet higher demand for electricity by extending the operating lives of plants rather than embarking on the costly and time-consuming process of building new ones, according to a new report.
The cost of operating a Plant Life Extension (PLEX) program is considerably lower than the capital cost of building a new plant, and so is being widely adopted as a way to meet power demand, which is expected to show a compound annual growth rate of 4 percent worldwide between 2012 and 2020, said the report from the U.K.-based business-intelligence group GlobalData. Keep reading →
Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Gregory Jaczko listens to his introduction before he delivers remarks at the Regulatory Information Conference on March 13, 2012 in Rockville, Maryland.The long-expected federal decision giving SCANA a license to build two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina came along with news that project has already encountered delays and cost overruns.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the license for SCANA’s Summer station near Columbia, SC on Friday, seven weeks after approving a similar license for Southern Company’s Vogtle station near August, Georgia. The vote was again 4-1, with Chairman Gregory Jaczko again dissenting over the commission’s decision not to attach a specific provision requiring compliance with future post-Fukushima requirements. Keep reading →
Though Duke and Progress Energy have been pursuing a merger for nearly a year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stalled it significantly this Wednesday claiming it would not allow for fair competition in local electricity markets.
The decision, based on FERC’s 1996 Merger Policy Statement, comes at a time of increasing consolidation and specialization in the energy industry and will set a new standard for future merger proposals. Keep reading →
