Experienced

Not to be outdone by the widespread blackouts experienced in the Northeast, Texas was bracing for what could become Hurricane Erika touching down in Brownsville, TX. At presstime Friday evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expected Tropical Storm Erika to make landfall in South Texas and Northeastern Mexico as a hurricane.

Transco said it experienced a 1 Bcf/d production loss from Hurricane Claudette, primarily off of its Central Texas Gathering System, North High Island system and the UTOS interconnect. As a result Transco instituted its Emergency Supply Allocation Process for Tuesday and Wednesday, which will balance all deliveries on the system with the flowing supply available at the corresponding receipt points. Transco said it would not allow make up deliveries nor would it loan shippers gas under its parking and lending service, but it said it would make emergency storage service available to firm shippers on request.

Questar said Friday it had experienced mechanical failure on a compressor at the Oak Springs Station. Nominations through Saturday there were reduced to 175,000 Dth/d, which is the level that can be physically delivered to Kern River-Goshen (formerly Elberta; see Daily GPI, May 1), Questar said. It was not known Friday how long the unit would be down for repair.

Comparing the current natural gas supply and pricing situation to the one experienced nearly two years ago, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said it is not likely that history will repeat itself with prices falling below $3/MMBtu like they did during the earlier time frame.

Comparing the current natural gas supply and pricing situation to the one experienced nearly two years ago, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said it is not likely that history will repeat itself with prices falling below $3/MMBtu like they did during the earlier time frame.

As Canadian natural gas exports to the United States turn up again, reversing shrinkage experienced in the last contract year, supply questions are moving out of the realm of theory and into practical cases.

As Canadian natural gas exports to the United States turn up again, reversing shrinkage experienced in the last contract year, supply questions are moving out of the realm of theory and into practical cases.

Having already experienced a wave of long liquidation (Friday) and a short-covering squeeze (Monday), natural gas futures were left without a major price influence on expiration day Tuesday. Modest, market-on-close selling tipped the scales in bears’ favor in the last 30 minutes of trading. The November contract finished at $4.126, down 5 cents for the session, but 23.7 cents higher than the level from which the market began its tenure as prompt month.

Despite the record natural gas well completions experienced last winter, Canada’s natural gas production — minus Ladyfern — appears to be on the decline, according to research by Lehman Brothers’ Oil & Gas unit. Total Canadian gas production year-to-date through April increased 2% above 2001. However, without the prolific Ladyfern find, year-to-date volumes would have been down about 2% from the same period and western Canadian production would be down 3%.