Alex Steis

With the brutally cold 2013-2014 winter firmly in the rearview mirror, the question that now looms is whether it will be possible to refill natural gas storage reservoirs in time for next winter, and at what price. Answering these questions would require an idea of how much gas should be in storage by the start of the heating season, according to NGI Markets analyst Nathan Harrison.

With the brutally cold 2013-2014 winter firmly in the rearview mirror, the question that now looms is whether it will be possible to refill natural gas storage reservoirs in time for next winter, and at what price. Answering these questions would require an idea of how much gas should be in storage by the start of the heating season, according to NGI Markets analyst Nathan Harrison.

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) job of policing how individual states oversee natural gas and other pipelines within their borders has been lacking in a number of categories, according to a report Friday by the DOT’s Office of Inspector General.

Physical natural gas prices put in another mixed day Thursday as northeastern pricing points logged a third straight decline-day with temperatures expected to warm up a bit, while California and Rocky Mountain indexes firmed. June natural gas futures sank below $4.800 on bearish storage data to finish out Thursday’s regular session at $4.719, down 9.6 cents from Wednesday’s close.

Seattle, WA-based Plum Energy LLC said Thursday that Avista Capital — a subsidiary of Spokane, WA-based Avista Corp. — has acquired a 20% equity stake in the company, which is engaged in the development of small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) value chains.

American Electric Power (AEP) is “successfully executing” its long-term earnings growth strategy, which includes investing in the company’s utility operations, retiring a number of coal-fired plants and building its transmission business to support an annual earnings growth rate of 4-6%, CEO Nicholas K. Akins, told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting Tuesday in Fort Wayne, IN.

Thanks to low natural gas prices, Philadelphia-based PECO said Wednesday its natural gas supply business has ballooned to more than 500,000 customers in southeastern Pennsylvania.

While the energy loss record in both the upstream and downstream oil and gas insurance markets during 2013 was no worse than average, the energy industry itself "might be sitting on an uninsured cyber-attack time bomb," according to a new report from Willis Group Holdings plc, a global risk advisor, insurance and reinsurance broker.

Even though spring has officially begun, chilly temps for much of the country led physical natural gas prices to move higher for the five trading days ending March 28. NGI's National spot gas average increased by 16 cents to average $4.76, with individual point bumps ranging from a couple of pennies at Gulf Coast locations to more than a dollar at a few Northeast sites.