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Apparently environmentalists aren’t the only ones filing lawsuits in the Rocky Mountain West. Four gas producers are suing Montana in an effort to overturn water-quality standards that impose what the producers say are “excessive” requirements on the quality of water exiting coalbed methane (CBM) development areas in the Powder River Basin.

A “classic example” of the country’s “failure to plan is New England and, frankly, the whole Northeast. We just aren’t doing it right,” FERC Commissioner Nora Brownell said last Thursday in an appearance at the Platts Northeast Power Markets Forum in Arlington, VA.

The principals aren’t talking, but rumors have been swirling in recent weeks about potential buy-out offers for portions of the increasingly valuable energy trading portion of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The latest was a report circulating Thursday that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. was presenting a proposal to the Nymex board to set up an initial public offering for the Exchange.

Global Energy Decisions Inc. (GED) said Thursday that high natural gas prices aren’t likely to be leaving anytime soon. In fact, the Boulder, CO-based company, which provides software, consultation and data solutions to the energy industry, said natural gas prices are likely to remain “stubbornly high” for the next few years.

Natural gas prices aren’t coming down anytime soon, at least according to the latest reports by two energy analysts last week. Raymond James last week suggested that the “fair value” for gas may run as high as $10/Mcf, while Stephen Smith Energy Associates pegged gas prices to end the year around $7.85/MMBtu.

Natural gas prices aren’t coming down anytime soon, at least according to the latest reports by two energy analysts last week. Raymond James last week suggested that the “fair value” for gas may run as high as $10/Mcf, while Stephen Smith Energy Associates pegged gas prices to end the year around $7.85/MMBtu.

Analysts at Raymond James & Associates aren’t quite ready to pack up their bull horns and nose rings, but they had to concede Monday that the domestic gas supply picture is improving. To them that simply means the domestic gas production decline isn’t as steep as they previously projected.

While many industry consultants and analysts are predicting that gas prices will escalate to more than $7/MMBtu as soon as this winter and will hold at that level through next year (see Daily GPI, July 22), Massachusetts-based Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI) believes the market is underestimating the substantial impact from increasing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and will be in for quite a surprise near the end of the storage injection season.

The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) projection that domestic dry gas production rose by about 2% in 2003 appears to be “overly optimistic,” a top official with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. told a Senate panel last Thursday. If this turns out to be the case, it would be the second consecutive year that the agency has erred on the high side when estimating gas production in the U.S.