Chance

Oil and gas producers submitted 421 bids totaling $197.395 million for a chance to explore in the Western Planning Area of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in the Minerals Management Service (MMS) Lease Sale 192 on Wednesday. Forty-five companies bid on 351 tracts, with most of the bids directed toward leases in shallow water. MMS estimates that production from the sale could result in 136-262 million barrels of oil and 0.81-1.44 Tcf of natural gas.

With natural gas demand continuing to build around the world and a number of countries looking for the chance to supply it, the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry could emerge as the second global energy business, according to Michael Stoppard, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) director of Global LNG.

Both California and Mexico are committed to giving proponents of liquefied natural gas (LNG) import projects a chance to make their cases for new receiving terminals, but it is still unclear how many and where (on-land or offshore) those facilities will be built, according to government energy officials who spoke this week at a conference in Long Beach, CA.

With natural gas demand continuing to build around the world and a number of countries looking for the chance to supply it, the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry could emerge as the second global energy business, according to Michael Stoppard, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) director of Global LNG.

FERC should put off finalizing its proposed rules on price reporting to publications until it has a chance to evaluate how well its voluntary guidelines are succeeding, producers said in comments filed Monday (RM03-10). If the Commission does proceed with its proposed amendments to blanket certificates, it needs to refine its definitions of prohibited behavior, producers and others said.

A joint settlement filed with FERC last Wednesday by El Paso Corp. and California parties to resolve charges of manipulative and questionable behavior offers “cognizable benefits not just to the California settling parties, but to all of [El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) pipeline’s] shippers” by giving them “more certainty” about capacity, the parties to the agreement told FERC.

A joint settlement filed with FERC Wednesday by El Paso Corp. and California parties (see Daily GPI, June 5) to resolve charges of manipulative and questionable behavior offers “cognizable benefits not just to the California settling parties, but to all of [El Paso Natural Gas (EPNG) pipeline’s] shippers” by giving them “more certainty” about capacity, the parties to the agreement told FERC.

With little in the way of fresh fundamental or technical news, natural gas futures traders played it safe Tuesday as they remained mostly on the sidelines in the abbreviated pre-holiday session. Gas futures trading shut down at 1 p.m. EST Tuesday and was set to re-open with Access trading Wednesday at 7 p.m. What activity there was Tuesday was dominated by locals who sold futures early only to cover those shorts late in the session. The net result was a market basically unchanged for the session. February closed the year at $4.789, down 1.1 cents on the day. Estimated volume was 48,835.

In the wake of the current turmoil surrounding Williams Cos., Williams Energy Partners LP took the chance to inform the investment community that it is an “extremely healthy” stand-alone company. The partnership held an unscheduled conference call last week to address investment concerns that dropped the company’s stock price by $6 (more than 19%) in Tuesday trading.