Entire

Kinder Morgan and Sempra Energy said Tuesday that they have secured commitments for the entire 1.8 Bcf/d of proposed firm transportation capacity on the 1,323-mile, $4 billion Rockies Express pipeline project, which would bring Rocky Mountain natural gas east to markets across the Midwest and Northeast.

In their first regular session as prompt month, April natural gas futures accomplished something the March contract failed to do its entire run at the front, which is break convincingly below entrenched support around the psychological $7.00 area. The prompt month ended up settling 52.4 cents lower than Friday at $6.789, setting a nine-month low. The July 2005 contract settled exactly at $6.789 on June 1, 2005.

El Paso Corp.’s Colorado Interstate Gas (CIG) is looking to complete work on its entire Raton Basin expansion project by mid-December, according to a company spokesman. The $61 million expansion, which was initially targeted for completion and in service in October, will add approximately 104,000 Dth/d of transmission capacity to the section of CIG’s pipeline system from south-central Colorado to the panhandle of Oklahoma.

Enterprise Products Partners said repairs were expected to be completed to its hurricane-damaged Toca natural gas processing plant in Chalmette, LA, and the entire facility back in operation by this week.

While the entire petroleum futures complex saw large declines in a holiday-shortened trading session Friday, October natural gas futures ended up settling at $11.691, just 6.6 cents lower than Thursday’s settle but $1.885 greater than the previous Friday’s close. With small amounts of natural gas production returning to the Gulf of Mexico, questions as to the extent of the damages and the duration of shut-ins still remain.

Nearly all Midcontinent points joined the entire western market in seeing softer prices Friday, while most numbers were flat to higher in the Gulf Coast, Northeast and Midwest. Most of the East derived support from Thursday’s screen advance of 3 cents and a modicum of cooling load in the humid South. Prices in the West and Midcontinent were depressed by a lack of weather-related demand and a new California OFO.

ConocoPhillips said Thursday its 4Q2004 oil and natural gas production, including Syncrude, is expected to be 1.6 MMboe/d, and for the entire year, output will be 1.56 MMboe/d. Production was up worldwide in the final quarter, and the producer said it also benefited from higher crude oil, natural gas and midstream gas prices.

Two units at CIG’s Rawlins (WY) Compressor Station will be out of service Aug. 1-31, reducing capacity through the station by 150 MMcf/d. In Utah, the entire Natural Buttes Compressor Station will be out of service Aug. 9-23 for plant upgrades and modifications, during which nominations will be scheduled to zero. In conjunction with the Natural Buttes outage, the Questar 101 Meter Station will be down with nominations scheduled to zero Aug. 9-12.

FitchRatings gave the entire North American gas and oil industry a “stable” credit outlook Tuesday based on expected average (lower) crude oil prices in 2004 and moderating (but still robust) gas prices.