Confirming

The Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board made it official last week, confirming independent reports that the province, the mainstay of Canadian natural gas, has passed a historic turning point, with aging fields past their prime entering a long-range decline. At the same time the province moved to shut in some gas production to protect its oil potential.

Confirming rumors swirling around the industry last week, Duke Energy announced late Thursday that it is restructuring its Duke Energy North America (DENA) business, naming a new leadership team and consolidating the company’s trading and marketing operations in its Houston office.

Confirming rumors swirling around the industry Thursday, Duke Energy announced late in the afternoon that it is restructuring its Duke Energy North America (DENA) business, naming a new leadership team and consolidating the company’s trading and marketing operations in its Houston office.

A day after confirming that a lateral leak near Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS) Platform 703 had been repaired and an outage of the Matagorda 703/704/709 receipt point had ended last Saturday (see Daily GPI, Aug. 7), MOPS operator Northern Natural Gas reported Wednesday that a leak had been detected again on the lateral. Matagorda 703/704/709 was taken to zero flow again, affecting 22,000 MMBtu/d. The expected downtime is unknown, NNG said. NNG owner Dynegy did not respond to an inquiry about whether this was a new leak or a recurrence of the old one.

Amid updated weather forecasts confirming the warming trend that is set to engulf the entire Eastern half of the nation this week, natural gas futures dove lower Tuesday, as traders returned from the holiday weekend and promptly liquidated long positions initiated early last week. February took the selling squarely on the chin, gapping lower at the open bell, and not once looking back as it came just one tick away from notching a new contract low at $2.094. It closed with an even 13-cent decline at $2.106.

Confirming rumors that began circulating late last week, Northwest Natural Gas Co. and Enron Corp. struck a deal to sell Enron’s electric utility subsidiary Portland General Electric (PGE) for $1.875 billion. Under terms of the transaction, expected to close by the fourth quarter of 2002, Natural will pay $1.55 billion in cash, give up $200 billion in preferred stock, $50 million in Natural common stock, and assume Enron’s $75 million balance in customer benefits obligations, stipulated in its 1996 PGE purchase. Natural also will assume almost $1.1 billion in PGE debt and preferred stock.

Confirming what the state’s energy crisis made abundantly clear months ago, the California Energy Commission (CEC) staff last week released its final draft report on the state’s natural gas infrastructure, concluding that it is constrained and has caused higher-than-average wholesale gas prices, particularly in the southern half of the state. But the report did not totally rule out market manipulation as a culprit.

Confirming plans announced two weeks ago by Westcoast Energy CEO Michael Phelps, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline said last week it has signed agreements with PanCanadian Petroleum Corp. to transport up to 400 MMcf/d of gas from PanCanadian’s C$1 billion Deep Panuke project offshore Nova Scotia to markets in Atlantic Canada and New England (see NGI, June 18).

Confirming plans announced last week by Westcoast Energy CEO Michael Phelps, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline said yesterday it has signed agreements with PanCanadian Petroleum Corp. to transport up to 400 MMcf/d of gas from PanCanadian’s C$1 billion Deep Panuke project offshore Nova Scotia to markets in Atlantic Canada and New England (see Daily GPI, June 15).