Energy Top of Mind for Purchasing Professionals

One aspect of the U.S. Federal Government that I appreciate is their ability to gather and crunch data. Government statistics including Producer Prices, Census information and BLS data often come in handy.

With energy being a hot topic, I recently visited the Energy Information Administration web site. Basic information topics include:

• How much renewable energy do we use?
• How dependent are we on foreign oil?
• How is my electricity generated, delivered, and priced?

Be sure to also check out the Short Term Energy Outlook. Global petroleum, natural gas, coal and electricity are covered. Also of interest is The 2008 Outlook for Hurricane Production Outages in the Gulf of Mexico.

The simulation results indicate only a less-than-1-percent probability of experiencing seasonal outages similar to 2005 when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck the Gulf Coast, i.e., cumulative shut-in production of more than 100 million bbls of crude oil or 600 Bcf of natural gas. Conversely, EIA projects the chance that offshore production in the Federally-administered Gulf of Mexico will be impacted this year is 98 percent for both crude oil and natural gas.

I also like the snapshot of energy prices provided on the gasoline and diesel fuel update. Information on both gas and diesel prices are provide by region. Historical graphs and trends are provided.