Curious how the election of Donald Trump may impact your supply chain? Looking for new approaches to purchasing steel-based equipment within an environment of increasing protectionism? Wondering whether the bankruptcy of major shipping companies affects your logistics and freight costs?

The scatterplot results from our previous blog post reveal two findings around utility gas distribution replacement rates that surprised us. First, our analysis shows that at the current rate of replacement, the majority of the industry will require at least 25 years to complete their programs. Second, we find capable, prominent companies plotted on the bottom of the y-axis – near a zero percent Replacement Rate. There are two metrics that help shed some light on what’s behind these findings.  

Gas distribution replacement programs are big, complex, and critical capital initiatives to manage. Natural gas utilities spend $22 billion and modernize 30,000 miles of distribution pipeline annually to ensure safety and to enhance system reliability and integrity.  From our experience providing technology and consulting to 14 of the top 50 U.S. gas utilities and helping them manage some $2.6 billion in annual gas infrastructure spend, we’ve seen utilities across the country ramp up their efforts to meet the challenge.

Thanks to everyone for our 9th successful User Group conference!

In today's post, we share a brief recap of the content, and if you're interested in hearing more about any of the presentations, just send us an email at costinsights@poweradvocate.com, and we'd be happy to set you up with any of our presenters.

Members of the Energy Intelligence Group present their "State of the Market" update

In a referendum on June 23, a majority of voters in the United Kingdom decided to leave the European Union, one of North America’s largest trading partners. While the “Brexit” vote is theoretically non-binding and does not immediately put the UK outside of the EU, it creates substantial uncertainty for UK businesses and all those engaged in commerce with the country. The result immediately jolted global markets and raises the prospect of other EU members holding similar votes following the successful “Leave” campaign in the UK.

In today's post, we cover the significance of this event as well as the challenges it raises for energy Supply Chain organizations.

After much anticipation, both the preliminary antidumping and countervailing duties on hot-rolled coil have been announced by the Department of Commerce.  This high profile trade case has the potential to send steel prices soaring for many items that energy companies purchase. So how will these developments impact you?

Read on to learn what’s happened with hot-rolled coil and to receive a list of suppliers that are most impacted by these new duties.

At it’s core, conducting spend analysis to inform sourcing strategies relies on answering two basic questions about every transaction:

1. What are you spending this money on?
2. Who are you spending it with?

If you are able to answer these questions, you can answer the more complex questions listed below, and achieve significant savings:

In the midst of $30 oil, no savings opportunity should be overlooked. Even still, with so many categories of spend among a multitude of suppliers to consider, it's difficult to prioritize, and even more difficult to find unexpected areas of savings.

Read on to find out how freight is one of the greatest (and most overlooked) savings opportunities in 2016…

On December 16, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates for the first time in almost a decade. Rates first came down from 5% in the summer of 2007 through the lows of the financial crisis in early 2009. Since then, the Federal Funds Rate has effectively been near zero in an effort to stimulate the underperforming U.S. economy. So what does the Fed’s historic decision last week mean for the energy sector?

This year, with crude, gas, and diesel prices in a continued slump, we’ve advised our readers to capitalize on market changes by negotiating prices with freight suppliers. When steel prices started declining we said to go look for savings on  items that are highly exposed to steel.