OIL, Natural Gas, and Hawaii island CostOfLiving

[Amrita]

HELCO VRS PRICE OF OIL VRS NATURAL GAS

Anybody know?

Obviously HELCO has put some money into PUNA lately vis a vis the lava flow. Are they going to raise the rates for all of Hawaii Island to recapture the expense?

Heard on HNL news that a big benefit to Hawaii residents will be lower electricity rates due to price of oil being much lower.

Will this show up on our island as lower HELCO prices?

Also read on CNBC news natural gas prices have and are also tanking.

Will this be carried through on Hawaii Gas prices?

[leilanidude]

Write a letter to the PUC (Public Utility Commission) and express your concerns about the price of electricity.

As to the price of natural gas and Hawaii Gas - Natural gas is not LPG - propane. Two entirely different products.

[Rattlestaff]

For one thing the price of oil will rise again,it goes in cycles,there have been crashes before and the price will rise
again. I don't think Helco would ever pass savings on to consumers. Especially knowing oil will rise again.
I remember back in the late 90's paying 1.25 at the pump during one of these cycles.

[terracore]

Propane is a byproduct of refining petroleum and natural gas (it must be removed from natural gas before natural gas goes into a pipeline). As a byproduct it's price isn't directly tied to the cost of oil or natural gas, more like it's tied to supply plus the cost of refining minus the demand of other refined products. It's also difficult to scale production up or down to match demand so the prices always seem wonky compared to the rest of the energy market. Last year's propane price hike was partially caused because a major propane pipeline was repurposed to send a condensate into Canada to be used for fracking. This will cause another price hike if the Midwest sees a colder than average winter. The pipeline hasn't been replaced but suppliers added propane storage. Once the stores are gone the price will shoot up again.

[kalakoa]

express your concerns about the price of electricity

Don't forget the "fuel surcharge" from Matson, Young Bros, FedEX and UPS, or the retail price of gas and propane, or every retailer who inflates their prices to pass their suppliers' fuel surcharge (or electricity rate!) on to the consumer....

Airfare is mostly "price of gas", so fares should be down, Hawaiian can go first with some cheaper interisland rates.

Everything imported to or shared between these islands includes a hefty hidden tax based on the price of oil, and it's applied multiple times, just like the GET.

[terracore]

A series of bankruptcies and mergers over the last 12 years have taken us from 10 major airlines down to four. Locally Mesa drove Aloha Airlines out of business and then later pulled out (under the Go! name) leaving no real competition to Hawaiian. Hawaiian cleverly filled that void by entering into an arrangement with Empire Airlines to fly under the Ohana name so that they can keep their market share but not have to pay the pilots or flight crews union wages. Island Air bought a fleet of aircraft with maintenance problems and they had to pull out of the Big Island. With only four major airlines dictating fares there won't be any major movement on prices regardless of the price of oil. The Big Four are using this sudden river of cash to put in purchase orders for more fuel efficient aircraft and pay the shareholders dividends. They know the price of oil is going back up and they are using it to show profit and invest in the future.

It's not all bad news. Southwest Airlines has recently certified a fleet of 737-800 aircraft and crew for ETOPS over water service and has identified all of the major Hawaiian islands as targets for expansion. Island Air has been quietly mulling returning to the Big Island, and the time you see new startups of discount carriers and expanded services from the minor leagues is when they see an opportunity. Like when the price of fuel is low but everybody is still charging high fuel air fares.

[Mimosa]

About a month ago - The P.U.C. quietly granted Matson's request for a 5.1 percent increase in shipping costs company wide starting on Jan 5th , 2015 . This will yet again raise prices on all goods shipped to the islands .
It is to offset the 8.9 cents a gallon tax on all grades of fuel levied on everyone nationwide starting Jan 1st 2015.

[JohnDW]

The entire state of Hawaii is one vast fossil fuel energy sink. The tourist industry, military, agriculture, and just about everything else, is totally fossil fuel dependent. Is it any wonder that geothermal gets special consideration?

I'm guessing that the current natural gas bonanza affects the price of competing fossil fuels even though production techniques have little in common.

Un Mojado Sin Licencia

[pahoated]

Whenever mainland transplants bring up the subject of Hawaii electricity, almost all fail to recognize the plantation era effect. This mainland connotation "grid" the ignorant keep being fixated on, is actually a micro-grid on each island. The plantation infrastructure put all these oil burning electric plants in as micro-grids, long before it became an emofanatic buzz word among ignorant transplants to Hawaii in the second decade of the 21st century. The sugar and pineapple *ag* export industry required that much electric power, nothing else on these islands did, except the military and they built their own diesel-electric plants. During that 100 years from 1860 to 1960, most plantation workers didn't have electricity for their residences, which were leased from the plantation. Plantation housing, plantation stores, plantation infrastructure. Tourism started requiring more and more electricity, the plantations had excess electric power and started running lines into towns and residences, for a metered fee.

These are not "grids". These are micro-grids, specific to each island, and even then, more accurately, are micro-rings, not grids. Grids criss-cross over each other and they don't here due to the geography.

Hawaii electric rates are about 90% referenced to the price of a barrel of oil. These stats don't have to be guessed at, they can be looked up, although not easily.

Hawaii Electric is required to make a request to the PUC when they need an electric rate increase. However, they don't need to make a request to lower rates. The rate is being lowered. The collapse in oil prices is only about two months old. There was a slight rate drop in November. In December, the HELCO electric rate decreased by 3.5%. If the oil collapse continues, the rate for January may be much more significant.

Only been saying this to idiots for 3 years. The Hawaii electricity rate is majority share referenced to the price of a barrel of oil. And there it is, in their monthly rate report, HELCO was buying oil at $95 per barrel during December. The Hawaiian Electric website is actually a wealth of information for those that don't have totally closed minds.
http://www.heco.com/vcmcontent/StaticFil...OV2014.pdf

"Mahalo nui Pele, 'ae noho ia moku 'aina" - kakahiaka oli