1999

The Midwest snowstorm that gave such a lift to the first dailyprices of 1999 was being repeated to a lesser degree over theweekend and Monday, but this time there were no gains of 20 centsor more as a result. Instead, most of the cash market was flat todown as much as a dime Monday. Still-massive storage inventories,along with forecasts of warming weather in the North and a fallingscreen, were cited as reasons for the softness. Several sources described trading action as subdued.

Nominations for the trip to Chicago on Northern Border reached490 MMcf/d by the middle of last week, which shows the line hasbeen ramping up gradually since beginning service on Dec. 22. Butit still is about 175 MMcf/d short of being full. The 665 MMcf/dextension did not begin service near full capacity as pipelineofficials had predicted for a number of reasons, a spokeswomansaid. “The California market has been particularly strong the lastfew weeks. The delivery point at Sumas, WA, has been veryprice-positive for the Canadians so there’s been a huge amount ofgas going in that direction,” noted Northern Border’s Beth Jensen.There also was a set-back caused by water left in the linefollowing hydrostatic testing. “They did have some delivery pointsthat froze so we had to work those things out.” Unfortunately therewas a four-day period without gas flow just prior to bidweek, whichcreated market uncertainty entering the month and probably impactednominations. “The kinks in the system are being worked out,” shesaid. “Now nominations at Manhattan, IL, [into Peoples] are 340MMcf/d and at Minooka [into NiGas] are 150 MMcf/d. “Frankly I don’tthink the market in Chicago to this point has jelled. I think it’son its way to working out. But right now the market off of Ventura,IA, [into Northern Natural to Minnesota and western Wisconsin]seems to be as strong as anything. It’s been very cold up there.”Northern Border’s expansion/extension project increased take-awaycapacity at Ventura by 260 MMcf/d.

©Copyright, 1999 Intelligence Press. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may Not be republished Or redistributed, in wholeOr in part, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press .

©Copyright, 1999 Intelligence Press. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may Not be republished Or redistributed, in wholeOr in part, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press .

The Energy Information Administration released its Annual EnergyOutlook 1999 (AEO99) last week, projecting gas demand will grow byabout 50% to 33.17 Tcf by 2020 from 1997 levels of 22.59 Tcf, whichis a 1.7% average annual increase.

The Energy Information Administration released its Annual EnergyOutlook 1999 (AEO99) yesterday, projecting gas demand will grow byabout 50% to 33.17 Tcf by 2020 from 1997 levels of 22.59 Tcf, whichis a 1.7% average annual increase. Total energy demand is projectedto grow 1.1%/year to 119.9 quadrillion Btu by 2020 from 94 quads in1997.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its Annual EnergyOutlook 1999 released Tuesday is forecasting only a gradual 0.8%average annual rise in natural gas wellhead prices through 2020.Prices will go from $2.23/Mcf in 1997 to $2.68 in 23 years later.

The California Public Utilities Commission has set a newschedule for hearings on gas industry restructuring, leading to aproposed policy decision in early 1999 and public hearings aroundthe state. The CPUC expects to adopt a final market structurepolicy no earlier than January 1, 2000 in keeping with alegislative mandate which prohibits the Commission making anychanges until the year 2000.

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