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A plethora of natural gas shale deposits, persistently high rig counts, hedging and available debt capacity have stifled domestic natural gas prices for possibly three years, analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) said Tuesday.

PAA Natural Gas Storage LP is holding a nonbinding open season for 2 Bcf of firm gas storage service to be available beginning in the second quarter of 2011 at its Pine Prairie salt cavern facility in Evangeline Parish, LA.

With a record amount of natural gas in storage and “resilient” domestic gas production, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects spot prices to hover in the $5/Mcf range during the winter season, “even as space-heating demand increases and economic conditions improve.” The agency also anticipates that gas consumption by power generators will drop next year due to potentially higher gas prices and the addition of new coal-fired generation capacity.

Low seasonal gas demand combined with limited available storage capacity will pressure cash prices, pushing the November natural gas futures contract lower, asserted a Credit Suisse analyst in a research note Friday, arguing against a decoupling of the prompt-month contract from cash.

Low seasonal gas demand combined with limited available storage capacity will pressure cash prices, pushing the November natural gas futures contract lower, asserted a Credit Suisse analyst in a research note last Friday, arguing against a decoupling of the prompt-month contract from cash.

Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Southern California is watching closely an ongoing test of two solar-natural gas air conditioning systems by Sempra Energy’s Los Angeles-based Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas). The gas utility is testing two similar systems at its Energy Resource Center in Downey, CA, as a means of accelerating their use among commercial customers, such as the Coca-Cola bottling plant.

PAA Natural Gas Storage LLC (PNGS) is holding a nonbinding open season for 2 Bcf of firm gas storage service to be available in the second quarter of 2010 at its Pine Prairie salt-cavern storage facility in Evangeline Parish, LA.

All of the available storage capacity at Falcon Gas Storage Co. Inc.’s Worsham-Steed and Hill-Lake facilities in North Texas was leased through an open season held last month, the company said Tuesday.

U.S. production and consumption of natural gas is expected to increase and gas imports will decline in the coming years, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2009 (AEO2009) reference case, an early summary of which was released Wednesday. It presents updated projections through 2030.