Event

Despite forecasts of a significant winter weather event for later in the week, natural gas futures bulls took their foot off the accelerator on Wednesday as the week recorded its first prompt-month contract decline. After reaching a high of $5.558 just after 10 a.m. EST, March futures closed the day’s regular session at $5.419, down 3.5 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

Despite forecasts of a significant winter weather event for later in the week, natural gas futures bulls took their foot off the accelerator on Wednesday as the week recorded its first prompt-month contract decline. After reaching a high of $5.558 just after 10 a.m. EST, March futures closed the day’s regular session at $5.419, down 3.5 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

Southern Star Central declared a force majeure event as it reduced capacity Wednesday on its Rawlins-Hesston Line due to required repairs resulting from findings of its pipeline integrity program. The reduction to 80,000 Dth/d through St. Francis Station in Cheyenne County, KS, is expected to be in effect until Friday, Southern Star said.

With the right prices North American liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports eventually will grow, and in any event the new array of receiving terminals in the United States gives it more options, according to the head of Gazprom’s U.S. marketing/trading operations. The Russian natural gas giant, which opened its Houston-based North American energy trading operations Oct. 1, intends to be an active physical and financial gas players throughout the nation (see Daily GPI, Oct. 2).

Southern Natural Gas said its shut-in test of the Muldon (MS) Storage Field from Tuesday through April 20 constitutes a force majeure event and it will reduce CSS customers’ injection and withdrawal quotas on a pro rata basis during the test. See the bulletin board for details.

Citing damages sustained from Hurricane Ike to its offshore Louisiana facility at Eugene Island 296, ANR declared a force majeure event and said it is not accepting receipt nominations from 10 meters (see the bulletin board for list).

CIG declared a force majeure event after an unexpected outage at Kim Compressor Station, located on the Campo Lateral (CS1) constraint point. Engine components must be sent to an external repair facility, CIG said, and it estimated the station’s return to service at approximately one week. Capacity at CS1 was reduced from 414 MMcf/d to 355 MMcf/d Thursday.

Transwestern said it would complete resolution of a force majeure event at Compressor Station 2 near Flagstaff, AZ (see Daily GPI, March 18) by Thursday evening and was accepting Timely cycle nominations for Friday’s gas day on its Thoreau/West system up to the normal capacity of 1,220,000 MMBtu/d.

Tennessee said Tuesday it does not expect third-party resolution of a force majeure event in the South Marsh Island 249 area a week earlier (see Daily GPI, March 13) until around March 31. Until resolution is completed, Tennessee requires that operators and producers keep physical flow at zero until further notice at 13 meters in the South Marsh Island and Vermilion areas offshore Louisiana.