Equally

Congress needs to take steps to regulate all natural gas markets equally, impose a limit on traders’ positions, enforce the statutory prohibition against excessive speculation and give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a bigger budget to prevent a replay of the Amaranth hedge fund collapse last year, which took a major toll on consumers, said the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Monday.

Last week’s announcement by Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty of a proposal to tax income trusts shocked many in his country’s oil patch, but soon a degree of calm had returned as it sunk in that existing trusts wouldn’t be affected until 2011. Some even predicted a silver lining of greater fiscal discipline among energy trusts, should the measure pass, while many still found much not to like.

Before a packed chamber split about equally between opponents and supporters, the Long Beach, CA, City Council just past midnight Wednesday morning voted 5-4 to continue discussions with proponents of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the city’s harbor. As a result, the city municipal energy department will resume talks that were cut off more than a year ago for a pipeline and LNG supplies from the proposed plant for the city’s natural gas distribution utility.

Before a packed chamber split about equally between opponents and supporters, the Long Beach, CA, City Council just past midnight Wednesday morning voted 5-4 to continue discussions with proponents of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the city’s harbor. As a result, the city municipal energy department will resume talks that were cut off more than a year ago for a pipeline and LNG supplies from the proposed plant for the city’s natural gas distribution utility.

As the screen giveth, so can the screen taketh away. That was the gist of opinion about substantially higher cash prices Tuesday that are expected to be followed by equally substantial declines in Wednesday’s quotes.

Leaving analysts and the press equally befuddled, Canadian Superior said the abandonment of the El Paso Mariner I-85 well in the Atlantic Ocean off Nova Scotia, following 3-1/2 months of drilling, was actually not out of the ordinary when dealing with a new prospect.

Before the prolific but unexplored deepwater basins offshore Nova Scotia can be tapped, the players will have to ask themselves what comes first: the chicken or the egg? Or, in energy terms, will there be gas wells or pipelines first? To answer that question and overcome the considerable challenges in the region, producers and pipeline operators will need to work together establish a regional infrastructure before production actually can begin, an industry executive said Tuesday in Houston.

A moderate advance in weather load got a market response of equally moderate price increases Wednesday. With quite a few points registering close to flat again, a preponderance of the gains were 7 cents or less.