Anticipated

Tennessee issued an OFO Action Alert, effective Tuesday for all LMS-PA, LMS-MA and LMS-PL Balancing Parties with meters in Zones 5 and 6, due to anticipated colder temperatures in its Northeast market area and in order to maintain linepack. See the bulletin board for OFO conditions.

The expiration-day plunge by November futures had the anticipated effect of dragging all cash points considerably lower Thursday. Also, warming trends in the Northeast and Rockies were reducing heating load further. The fact that Thursday’s deals included a weekend flow day (Saturday) because of the transition to a new month on Sunday added another modestly bearish element to the market.

As anticipated, prices fell at nearly all points Friday, with a large majority of them averaging less than $2. Naturally, the extra demand loss associated with a holiday weekend and the previous day’s dip of 20.7 cents by October futures played roles in the major softness. But already-meager cooling load was dwindling ever further.

MarkWest Pioneer LLC is holding a nonbinding open season/reverse open season through 5 p.m. MDT July 20 to determine whether to expand the Arkoma Connector, a 50-mile interstate natural gas pipeline initially designed to deliver 625,000 Dth/d from the Woodford Shale to pipelines destined for eastern markets. MarkWest Pioneer said it received inquiries about adding firm transportation service to the Arkoma Connector. The reverse open season would determine whether existing shippers want to return “all or a portion of their current firm transportation entitlements,” MarkWest said. Precedent agreements are in place with two anchor shippers: Newfield Exploration Mid-Continent Inc. for 500,000 Dth/d of firm transportation for nine years, and Chesapeake Energy Marketing Inc. for 76,000 Dth/d of firm transportation for 10 years. The 24-inch diameter Arkoma Connector, which is nearing completion, would extend from the outlet of a MarkWest affiliate’s existing treating plant in northeast Oklahoma to near Bennington, OK, where it would interconnect with the Midcontinent Express Pipeline and Gulf Crossing Pipeline systems. The project includes 19,500 hp of added compression at two compressor stations and associated facilities in Oklahoma’s Coal, Atoka and Bryan counties.

Even with an anticipated 70% cut to the U.S. natural gas rig count and an increasing number of uncompleted wells and summer shut-ins, domestic supply won’t fall fast enough to solve the overcapacity problem this year, analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said last week.

Even with an anticipated 70% cut to the U.S. natural gas rig count and an increasing number of uncompleted wells and summer shut-ins, domestic supply won’t fall fast enough to solve the overcapacity problem this year, analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said Monday.

As a marketer had anticipated a day earlier, cash prices capped a week of solid advances Friday by recording increases throughout the market. A bit of extra chill was due in the Midwest and Rockies over the weekend, but otherwise forecasts remained about as benign for gas demand as they were earlier in the week. Industrial load’s weekend decline obviously had little impact.

April natural gas futures rose as prices crossed an important technical threshold and traders anticipated additional buying. Petroleum and equity markets also advanced but traders were not convinced of a significant linkage with natural gas.

Depressed wholesale natural gas and power prices, along with the prospects for curbing emissions to meet anticipated future carbon constraints, combined to drive down earnings in the fourth quarter for Edison International’s independent energy unit, Edison Mission Group (EMG), the parent company reported Monday as part of a conference call on its year-end 2008 earnings, which were up 4% over the previous year. Prospects for EMG this year are not much better, according to Edison CEO Ted Craver, speaking to analysts.