Good Afternoon,
We believe that the Bureau of Reclamation is committed to performing maintenance on Coulee this winter. When they do it is optional but with extremely low prices we suspect this is probably the most economical time they could find. What does it mean?
Grand Coulee’s reservoir, Lake Roosevelt, will need to be pulled down to 1255′ by March 15, then kept at that level until May 15, or until the maintenance is completed. The consequences of this are interesting:
- Coulee will draft 20 feet of water from now to Mar 15
- Coulee won’t draft anything during the previously planned draft period: Apr 10-30
- Coulee will not be allowed to refill beginning on May 1 as it normally would
- The refill of Coulee will compressed into a shorter time horizon, 45 days, versus the usual 60 days.
Net affect is that Bom/Mar are going to get longer; mid-April is now shorter; first half of May is longer, and last half of Q2 is shorter. Good luck trying to trade that hodge podge.
Tonight we are updating our models to incorporate this change; tomorrow, after the model is published on the site I will go through the price impacts.
Cheerio
Mike