NEW YORK ? The price of natural gas, a major energy source for power plants, jumped 3 percent Wednesday as power started to come back in the East following widespread outages caused by Hurricane Irene.
Utilities are making progress in reconnecting homes and businesses that lost power over the weekend. More than three-quarters of the 9.4 million outages were restored during the past few days, and almost all the power should be back by next week. The recovery will boost energy demand along the East Coast, increasing the output from natural gas-fired generators.
Natural gas rose 11 cents, or 3 percent, to $4.023 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Gas also got a boost Wednesday from the shutdown of a major pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico that has operating problems. The 255-mile long Destin Pipeline transports gas from offshore wells in the Gulf to processing facilities in Mississippi that send gas on to major interstate pipelines.
BP, which is the majority owner of Destin, said that the pipeline can transport up to 1.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, about one-fifth the amount that Americans consume. The company didn't say how long the pipeline would be offline.
Losing the Destin Pipeline should not make a big impact on supplies, said Ron Denhardt, vice president of natural gas services at Strategic Energy & Economic Research. "But it's still going to support prices for a little while," he said.
Gasoline pump prices haven't changed much despite closures or partial shutdowns at several refineries in the East. During the past week, the average price of a gallon of gas increased by less than a penny in Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont. Prices rose by about a penny in Maine, nearly 2 cents in Virginia, about 3 cents in Delaware and Pennsylvania, and by 4 cents in New Jersey.
The national average rose a little more than 4 cents in the past week. It hit $3.617 per gallon overnight, according to AAA, Wright Express and Oil Price Information Service.
In other energy trading benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was little changed, up 54 cents to $89.44 per barrel in New York, and Brent crude, used to price international varieties of oil, rose 88 cents to $114.90 in London.
Heating oil was up 2 cents at $3.0931 per gallon and gasoline futures increased 3 cents to $2.8764 per gallon.
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