Barring

Barring a lot of hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico this year, it’s unlikely that natural gas prices will rise to the level of 2005 prices, Virginia-based Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) said Wednesday. EEA is forecasting average 2006 Henry Hub prices at around $6.90/MMBtu, or $1.90 lower than the $8.80 average in 2005, with a “significant” rise due in 2007 and 2008.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last week in its Short-Term Energy Outlook that “barring extreme weather for the rest of the year,” the Henry Hub spot price’s 2006 average is expected to be more than a dollar less than it was in 2005.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday in its Short-Term Energy Outlook that “barring extreme weather for the rest of the year,” the Henry Hub spot price’s 2006 average is expected to be more than a dollar less than it was in 2005.

Barring a snap back to cold weather, look for natural gas prices to remain “soft” at around $7/MMBtu and perhaps less for the remainder of the first half of this year, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service said in a 2006 oil and gas trends research note released last week.

Barring a snap back to cold weather, look for natural gas prices to remain “soft” at around $7/MMBtu and perhaps less for the remainder of the first half of this year, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service said in a 2006 oil and gas trends research note released Tuesday.

Citing an electrical problem at the Hastings Extraction Plant, Dominion said it was required to take most of its wet gas system out of service immediately Wednesday. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the outage is expected to last two days, it added. Dominion said it had made arrangements to move some of the wet gas off system to Equitrans. Production physically located in the 3401, 3402, 3403, 3404, 3405, 3406, 3407, 3408, 3409 bubbles behind Camden Station and bubbles 3304, 3305 and 3303 behind Kennedy Station may stay online during this outage, Dominion said, while pool operators must shut in all other gas in the wet system.

Due to customers banking more than 300,000 dekatherms on its system over the holiday weekend, Kern River posted a critical notice barring banking Monday morning. The practice persisted, however, with the pipeline projecting the banking amount at 200,000 dekatherms for Tuesday’s gas day. Citing the threat to system operations, Kern River looked at actual flows as of 4:15 p.m. MCT Tuesday and assumed a uniform hourly flow for the remainder of the gas day. Based on that analysis, capacity at Kern River meters was reduced to meet the assumed uniform hourly flow in the Intraday 2 nominations cycle. In an update Wednesday, Kern River said linepack remained at a critically high level and that it “will continue to compare scheduled quantities to actual deliveries and will take appropriate action to reduce unauthorized banking.”

The California Energy Commission (CEC) Wednesday vented its frustration with FERC by claiming that federal regulators were barring access to critical safety information that was needed by the state to carry out its review of the joint federal-Port of Long Beach draft environmental impact report (EIR) on a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the harbor.

Assuming normal weather through January, and barring a major oil supply disruption during the period, Stephen Smith Energy Associates is forecasting a natural gas target price in the range of $5.50-$6/MMBtu for February Henry Hub bidweek prices.