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Gas producers stand warned to count on facing determined environmental resistance every step of the way if the British Columbia and federal governments press ahead on plans to end a 33-year-old ban against drilling in the offshore of the Canadian West Coast.

Gas producers stand warned to count on facing determined environmental resistance every step of the way if the British Columbia and federal governments press ahead on plans to end a 33-year-old ban against drilling in the offshore of the Canadian West Coast.

Don’t count on a multitude of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals and a flood of LNG collapsing domestic gas prices, said James Trifon, Wood Mackenzie’s managing consultant for North America LNG. Most of the import terminals planned won’t make it, and the underlying tight domestic supply situation will continue to support the market, he said in a preview of a presentation to be given at GasMart on March 18 in New Orleans (see http://www.gasmart.com/).

Don’t count on a multitude of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals and a flood of LNG collapsing domestic gas prices, said James Trifon, Wood Mackenzie’s managing consultant for North America LNG. Most of the import terminals planned won’t make it, and the underlying tight domestic supply situation will continue to support the market, he said in a preview of a presentation to be given at GasMart on March 18 in New Orleans (see http://www.gasmart.com/).

Two lawmakers last Thursday told a group of Native American Indians not to expect broad-based energy legislation to emerge from Congress this year, confirming what many people already suspected.

Two lawmakers on Thursday told a group of Native American Indians not to expect broad-based energy legislation to emerge from Congress this year, confirming what many people already suspected.

Natural gas futures dropped to new one-month lows Thursday morning on the news that a record-setting 125 Bcf was injected into underground storage last week. After gapping lower at the opening bell, the July contract shuffled down for the first 30 minutes of trading. When the Energy Information Administration released its weekly storage update at 10:30 a.m. EDT, the market easily dropped below $6.00. Buyers stepped in when prices reached the low $5.80s, but that did little to dissuade the sellers Thursday afternoon who were successful in pushing the market lower just before the closing bell. July finished at $5.606, down 60.7 cents or nearly 10% for the session.

Andrew S. Fastow, the 40-year-old former CFO of Enron, is scheduled to be arraigned in Houston on Wednesday (Nov. 7) on 78 counts that accuse him of leading the effort to conceal the company’s losses and debts, as well as inflate the former energy merchant’s trading profits. The indictment lists six different crimes, with the following charges: 36 wire fraud; 36 money laundering; 2 conspiracy to commit wire fraud; 2 conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud; 1 money laundering conspiracy; and 1 obstruction of justice.

The body count of lost energy traders and related support staff has climbed sharply in the past two weeks after Williams Cos. downsized its staff by another 210 employees, Reliant Resources Inc. cut close to 135, and Albuquerque-based PNM Resources Inc. eliminated 85 positions. The new cuts followed those by Houston’s UBS Warburg Energy, which fired 100 of its energy trading staff, and Duke Energy Corp. said it was considering reducing its 500-member trading force to “fit” the current conditions.