Developing

TransCanada Corp. said Wednesday that it is developing a $200 million natural gas storage facility near Edson, AB. Under the plan, the facility will have a capacity of approximately 50 Bcf and will connect to TransCanada’s Alberta System.

With warming trends developing, several pipelines either had already canceled holiday restrictions that had been in effect over the long holiday weekend due to cold weather or were in the process of doing so. However, a few constraints were still in place Monday. Wellhead freeze-offs were reported in a couple of areas but did not affect deliveries.

Traders braced for what promised to be extra-cold weather developing in most of the East over the weekend by sending prices higher at all points Friday. As often happens, Northeast citygates led all advances, which ranged from a dime to more than $1.30. The smallest increases were concentrated in the West, where relatively moderate conditions will prevail in most of the region outside the Pacific Northwest until about midweek.

Kinder Morgan said it is evaluating the feasibility of developing a pipeline or expanding Natural Gas Pipeline Co.’s (NGPL) Louisiana line to accommodate natural gas from several liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminals planned along the Gulf Coast. The additional transportation capacity would be used to deliver regasified LNG to various markets and pipeline hubs in the region along the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

Cheniere Energy Inc. widened its loss in the second quarter over a year ago, blaming the decline on the cost of developing its liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals. The Houston-based producer reported a net loss of $8.05 million (minus 43 cents/share) versus a net loss of $1.62 million (minus 11 cents) in 2Q2003.

Drawing a legal distinction between facilities and companies developing them, the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday unanimously instituted an investigation of the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Long Beach Harbor, including the determination that the Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary proposing to build the terminal is a “public utility” under California law and must gain CPUC approval to build the project.

Drawing a legal distinction between facilities and companies developing them, the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday unanimously instituted an investigation of the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Long Beach Harbor, including the determination that the Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary proposing to build the terminal is a “public utility” under California law and must gain CPUC approval to build the project.

With National Petroleum Council projections that liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries into the United States could grow to 15 Bcf/d by 2020 from about 2.5 Bcf/d currently, all of the majors are beginning to take significant positions in the domestic LNG market. ExxonMobil said last month that it is looking at four sites for U.S. LNG terminals (see NGI, Oct. 20), and last week Shell announced its own offshore Louisiana LNG terminal, which would be in direct competition with one already planned by ChevronTexaco.

Plans in the western United States for developing a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import business along the Pacific Coast of North Baja in Mexico will have to compete with an aggressive push by China to rapidly ramp-up an LNG industry, according to an Arizona-based energy attorney with worldwide oil/gas development experience.