Announcements

Separate announcements last week by Regency Energy Partners LP, Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) and CenterPoint Energy Field Services Inc. (CEFS) promise to build natural gas deliverability from the Haynesville Shale.

Simultaneous announcements Thursday in San Diego and Quebec City put teeth in messages sent to Canadian exporters by new reports from the U.S. Department of Energy and Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) — they no longer own U.S. markets for imported natural gas.

Simultaneous announcements Thursday in San Diego and Quebec City put teeth in messages sent to Canadian exporters by new reports from the U.S. Department of Energy and Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) — they no longer own U.S. markets for imported natural gas.

Adding up to a big week for the Calgary-based oil and gas producer, Canadian Superior Energy Inc. in separate announcements last week said it is expanding its Western Canadian footprint through acquisition and has made a new natural gas discovery offshore Trinidad.

Responding to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) request for comments on proposed changes to its procedures for making revisions to its weekly announcements of storage survey results (see Daily GPI, Jan. 10), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff recommended that revisions of seven Bcf or more be announced as soon as possible during normal business hours.

Two announcements last week indicate that Gulf of Mexico (GOM) discoveries have not ended, nor have producers put their deepwater work on the back burner.

An EnCana spokesman reiterated Thursday that the company is holding off on making any announcements regarding its $1.1 billion Deep Panuke project offshore Nova Scotia, which has been on hold since February, until its previously scheduled update for regulators on Dec. 10. He said it was pure speculation by analysts this week regarding whether the company might decide to connect Deep Panuke to ExxonMobil’s Sable Offshore Energy Project facilities, which are only about 30 miles away, and cancel previous plans to build its own pipeline to the Nova Scotia shore.

Cleco Corp. last Thursday said that it has identified so-called “round trip” trades, as well as transactions that may have violated affiliate regulations established by FERC and the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC), after a review initiated by its board of directors of certain energy trading activities over the past three years.

Although there have been few if any formal announcements about increases in exploration and capital spending, there has been a huge increase in the rig count since it bottomed out a little more than a month ago, indicating producers probably aren’t waiting around to take advantage of a favorable 12-month gas futures strip, Raymond James & Associates said in an equity research note.