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With the start of the 2008-2009 winter heating season less than a week away, new storage and pipelines facilities are revving up to serve markets in the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, Southeast and South. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given the go-ahead to place in service a pipeline expansion in Florida, storage-related pipeline facilities in Louisiana and a storage withdrawal expansion in the Pacific Northwest, and is mulling over requests for a Nov. 1 start-up of a new storage cavern along the Gulf Coast and pipeline expansion facilities to serve the Long Island and New York markets.

With global financial markets seized up and credit scarce, energy companies that have cash on hand may be able to take advantage of overlevered, distressed firms in the near future, Raymond James & Associates Inc. analysts said in a report issued last week.

All but eclipsed by yet another day of wild swings on Wall Street, energy futures still were able to make a splash on Friday as crude futures pushed below $80/bbl for the first time in exactly one year and natural gas futures continued to nip at their 13-month low. November crude ended up closing $8.89 lower at $77.70/bbl while November natural gas finished at $6.535, down 29 cents on the day and 82.3 cents lower than the previous week’s finish.

With global financial markets seized up and credit scarce, energy companies that have cash on hand may be able to take advantage of overlevered, distressed firms in the near future, Raymond James & Associates Inc. analysts said in a report issued Monday.

Thanks to a second straight day of futures strength Wednesday, cash prices were able to continue climbing at a majority of points Thursday. However, quotes tanked by triple-digit amounts in the Midcontinent and Rockies. Sources cited a common cause for the great price weakness in both regions: essentially no local weather-based demand at all.

Even with much of the Gulf of Mexico’s natural gas production shut in, storage operators were able to inject a whopping 87 Bcf into underground storage for the week ended Sept. 26, which turned the keys back over to natural gas bears for the time being. Following the Thursday morning report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), November natural gas futures dropped nearly 30 cents before finishing out the session at $7.481, down 24.7 cents from Wednesday’s close.

Even with the Gulf of Mexico shut-in from hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the natural gas industry was still able to inject a healthy 67 Bcf into underground storage for the week ended Sept. 12, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The injection was large enough to bring October natural gas futures back well below $8 in Thursday trade.

The market had been able to rise in most cases Thursday despite declining cooling load, but it had to face up to the reality of generally weak weather fundamentals Friday. Prices fell by double-digit amounts across the board, and by half a dollar or more at a majority of points. The previous day’s 20.2-cent drop by September futures and the weekend loss of industrial load were additional factors contributing to the cash softness.

A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, Friday vacated a FERC order approving an expansion of Dominion Cove Point LP’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Lusby, MD, ruling that the evidence did not support the agency’s conclusion that a DC-based utility can fix widespread leaks on its system before the expansion goes into operation.