American Gas - August/September 2014 - (Page 11)

DIGEST ﬁrst-quarter 2014 rates averaged more than 25 basis points below the year-end 2013 level. "Near zero short-term interest rates are expected until mid-2015 under present Fed monetary policy, as outlined recently by Chairman Janet Yellen," says Fitch. "Long-term interest rates will be suppressed until tapering is completed under the Fed's Quantitative Easing, which is expected to conclude by year-end 2014." In its report, Fitch also states that the narrowing window on low interest rates may accelerate the moderate consolidation pace for the utility industry. "Low interest rates have bolstered utility equity valuations which, in turn, supported the rising multiples paid for acquisitions. A move to higher ﬁnancing costs, particularly for leveraged transactions, will likely dampen the acquisition pace." Fitch also notes that the current capital investment cycle for U.S. utilities appears to be peaking, with environmental upgrades complete or in the latter stages of completion. The report, "U.S. Utilities: Little Interest to Rising Rates," is available at www.ﬁtchratings. com. -G.J. U P D AT E Betting Big on Natural Gas Dollars pour into funds that invest in drillers, pipelines, and utilities O f the $8 billion in investments that ﬂowed into industry-focused exchangetraded funds, or ETFs, through May of this year, nearly two-thirds went into energy, Bloomberg reported. And a signiﬁcant portion targeted funds that invest in natural gas producers. The interest in gas is being driven by several considerations, according to Bloomberg. Shortterm factors have included the coldest winter in three decades, which helped push up gas demand and producer proﬁts. Longer-term issues include President Obama's environmental initiatives- which have favored natural gas over other fossil fuels-and the prospect that Europe will turn to U.S. LNG to ease its reliance on Russian gas. But another consideration could be the 2002 to 2012. If all proposed and approved projects began operating at capacity today, the U.S. could be exporting nearly 30 percent of its gas by 2020, a Lux Research analyst said in a statement. A research team at the University of British Columbia is pioneering a water treatment technology for gas extraction that could signiﬁcantly reduce the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing. Designed to address two key issues-carbon management and water desalination-the new technology uses advanced dialysis cells to convert excess carbon dioxide and wastewater generated during the hydraulic fracturing process into valuable Continued on page 12 oducing intr * AUTOMATIC RECORDING OF ALL READINGS AND GPS LOCATIONS * AUTOMATIC READING CORRECTION (LINEARITY, ELEVATION, PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE) * ADVANCED PC SOFTWARE FOR MAPPING, REPORTING AND MANAGEMENT * CERTIFIED FOR SAFE USE IN CLASS 1, DIV 2 LOCATIONS (PENDING) * REPLACEABLE, RECHARGEABLE LI ION BATTERY PACK FOR LONG RUN-TIME 1 - 8 0 0 - H E AT H - U S w w w. h e a u s . c o m AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2014 AMERICAN GAS 11 http://www.fitchratings.com http://www.fitchratings.com http://www.heaus.com http://www.heaus.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Gas - August/September 2014

Contents

American Gas - August/September 2014