Complications

Arctic natural gas boosters are braced for disappointments as prices, politics and regulatory complications overtake projects — especially in Canada.

Arctic natural gas boosters are braced for disappointments as prices, politics and regulatory complications overtake projects — especially in Canada.

In releasing preliminary third-quarter results, Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. late Friday reported a lot of red ink and financial complications resulting in three separate one-time negative write-downs collectively totaling a loss of $1.22/share for the quarter. The biggest charges taken were for impairment of the company’s merchant power plant in Las Vegas, which is losing money due to the extremely high wholesale natural gas prices, resulting in a $50.3 million, or 99 cent/share, charge against earnings.

Cuba Wadlington Jr., president and CEO of Williams’ gas pipeline division and executive vice president of Williams, died Dec. 9 in Tulsa of complications related to cancer. He was 58. From 1995-99, Wadlington served as senior vice president and general manager of Williams’ Transco natural gas pipeline system. From 1988 to 1995, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Williams Western Pipeline Co, executive vice president of Kern River Gas Transmission Co. and director of Northwest Pipeline Corp. and Williams Western Pipeline, all affiliates or subsidiaries of Tulsa-based Williams.

Cuba Wadlington Jr., president and CEO of Williams’ gas pipeline division and executive vice president of Williams, died Sunday in Tulsa of complications related to cancer. He was 58. From 1995-99, Wadlington served as senior vice president and general manager of Williams’ Transco natural gas pipeline system. From 1988 to 1995, he served as senior vice president and general manager of Williams Western Pipeline Co, executive vice president of Kern River Gas Transmission Co. and director of Northwest Pipeline Corp. and Williams Western Pipeline, all affiliates or subsidiaries of Tulsa-based Williams.

Questar experienced a mechanical failure Thursday in Unit #7 atits Clay Basin storage facility. Barring unexpected complications,repairs should be complete by today and the unit available forservice again on Tuesday’s gas day, the pipeline said. Injectioncapacity has been reduced to 235,000 Dth/d during the outage.Allocation of injection capacity was expected to occur each day,with the impact determined by customer nominations. However, thereis no impact on withdrawal nominations, Questar said.