Desert

Perth, Western Australia-based Golden State Resources has received further verification it could be holding a significant shale gas play in the Golden Eagle field in Grand County in southeast Utah. The economics look good, according to a recent petroleum engineering consultant’s study.

Other than parts of the South, desert Southwest and California, it was rare to find any forecasts for Thursday lows that didn’t range from around freezing to a few degrees below zero. But that was able to keep only a little more than half of the cash market from seeing losses Wednesday. One source suggested that increasing use of storage in lieu of spot gas purchases may have been limiting the price-boosting impact of the cold weather.

Hot weather wasn’t much of a factor in Wednesday’s market as forecast peaks in the mid 90s or higher remain confined to parts of South Texas, the desert Southwest and inland California. Otherwise moderate to cool or chilly conditions dominate the rest of the North American outlook.

A California state survey has found that cancer rates are not disproportionately high in Hinkley, CA, the high desert ranching town where Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s (PG&E) natural gas transmission pipeline operations dumped toxic water that contaminated local water supplies, resulting in a $333 million settlement. The case inspired the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

Fall may have officially begun a day earlier, but with parts of the Northeast joining the South and desert Southwest in conditions that felt more like summer, prices continued to rise at nearly all points Thursday. The cash market got an additional boost from Wednesday’s 4.7-cent gain by October futures, and a concern about the pending formation of a new tropical storm in the Caribbean likely played a role.

Southern heat levels were expected to remain static or rise slightly in some sections into the low to mid 90s Thursday, but otherwise, except the desert Southwest and the Denver area of the Rockies, few other locations were expected to get above the 80s. Thus cash prices had to rely primarily on a prior-day increase of 6.3 cents by August futures, and possibly expectations of a moderately bullish storage report Thursday, in ranging from flat to nearly 15 cents higher at a majority of points.

Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) unit intends to employ its new 45.5-mile pipeline in the high desert northeast of the Los Angeles Basin to meet the growing energy demand from the expanding town of Twenty-Nine Palms, CA, and its nearby U.S. Marine Training Base. SoCalGas will not integrate the pipeline into its larger backbone transmission pipeline system, a spokesperson told NGI.

Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) unit intends to employ its new 45.5-mile pipeline in the high desert northeast of the Los Angeles Basin to meet the growing energy demand from the expanding town of Twenty-Nine Palms, CA, and its nearby U.S. Marine Training Base. SoCalGas will not integrate the pipeline into its larger backbone transmission pipeline system, a spokesperson told NGI.

Forecasts of Tuesday highs in the 80s throughout most of the South and even hotter weather in the desert Southwest, along with the previous Friday’s 17.3-cent gain by June futures, paved the way for higher prices at nearly all points Monday. Still-robust storage injection demand and the return of industrial load from its weekend hiatus also contributed to Monday’s overall firmness.