Avoid

Canadian natural gas producers have found a procedural crack in Alberta’s bitumen policy and widened it into a doorway to gain at least a temporary reprieve from an order to shut in 938 wells found to jeopardize oil sands projects in northern Alberta. About 80% of the wells stayed open after the Sept. 1 shut-in date set by the July order, when 11 production companies filed a flood of about 740 exemption applications with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board.

Canadian natural gas producers have found a procedural crack in Alberta’s bitumen policy and widened it into a doorway to gain at least a temporary reprieve from an order to shut in 938 wells found to jeopardize oil sands projects in northern Alberta. About 80% of the wells stayed open after the Sept. 1 shut-in date set by the July order, when 11 production companies filed a flood of about 740 exemption applications with the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board.

Atlanta-based power and natural gas trader Mirant Corp. lost its months-long effort to avoid bankruptcy late Monday, filing voluntary petitions seeking Chapter 11 protection in a Texas court. The company was expected to file an application in Canada Tuesday seeking creditor protection for its Canadian subsidiaries.

The downhill price path got steeper for nearly all points Wednesday except for a few in the West. Traders continued to dwell on the relative brevity of a heat wave this week in northern market areas and their expectations of another 100 Bcf-plus storage refill in Thursday morning’s report by the Energy Information Administration.

Atlanta-based Mirant said late Monday it has offered to restructure some of its debt and bonds in a plan designed to pay off its creditors and avert a likely bankruptcy. The company also is asking its debt holders to vote in favor of a “fast track” pre-packaged plan of reorganization, in case an insufficient number of banks or bondholders agree with its out-of-court restructuring plan.

Only a handful of utilities in southern and southwestern U.S. states are “likely” to avoid the adverse effects on natural gas demand that the coming El Nino is expected to produce this winter, according to a new report by Williams Capital.

As sources had anticipated, forecasts of high temperatures once again infesting much of the nation were insufficient to overcome the double drag on prices of a big futures drop on the previous afternoon and the fall-off in industrial load that accompanies a weekend. Outside of continuing moderate firmness at Rockies and Pacific Northwest points, the rest of Friday’s market ranged from flat to about 20 cents lower. Declines on either side of a dime were most prevalent.

As sources had anticipated, forecasts of high temperatures once again infesting much of the nation were insufficient to overcome the double drag on prices of a big futures drop on the previous afternoon and the fall-off in industrial load that accompanies a weekend. Outside of continuing moderate firmness at Rockies and Pacific Northwest points, the rest of Friday’s market ranged from flat to about 20 cents lower. Declines on either side of a dime were most prevalent.

As some sources had suspected, the recent buildup in air conditioning load wasn’t strong enough to sustain this week’s bull market in the wake of another big storage injection report and associated screen softness. Only small to moderate Rockies/San Juan increases went against the grain of overall market declines Thursday that were mostly between a dime and 30 cents but got as big as nearly $1.50 for California border deliveries into SoCalGas.