Experts

Natural gas futures continued to probe lower values on Tuesday, but market experts wonder whether the downward move that began last summer might actually be coming to an end. For its part, the April contract put in a low of $3.761 before closing Tuesday’s regular session at $3.812, down 3.8 cents from Monday’s finish.

February natural gas futures managed to rebound 13.8 cents to close at $4.780 on Wednesday, but market experts were quick to put the brakes on any bullish optimism. Even with brutal cold lingering in a number of important gas-consuming regions, most traders were quick to note that the slumping economy remains the lead story in commodity trading.

As both the House and Senate prepare to take up energy legislation, energy experts and industry officials Friday called on lawmakers to take an “ecumenical” approach to domestic energy policy that encourages the production of all resources.

As both the House and Senate prepare to debate energy legislation this week, energy experts and industry officials Friday called on lawmakers to take an “ecumenical” approach to domestic energy policy that encourages the production of all forms of resources.

While some industry experts had expected traders to get back to the business of storm concerns Friday after October natural gas futures plummeted more than half a dollar Thursday on a stout 102 Bcf storage injection, those predictions proved unfounded. Even as Gulf of Mexico evacuations and shut-ins continued ahead of Hurricane Gustav, and concerns related to Tropical Storm Hanna grew, the prompt-month contract ended up dropping 10.7 cents to close at $7.943.

Responding to proposals from the newly empowered national power reliability experts, FERC late Friday approved eight new standards for the Western Interconnection, the nation’s grid west of the Mississippi River, in effect continuing certain reliability practices that are currently effective throughout the western grid. Proposed standards from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) were found to be more stringent than national standards, the federal regulators concluded.

Adding to the chorus of forecasters calling for a busy Atlantic hurricane season, experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center said last Tuesday that they are projecting a 75% chance that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be above normal, while WSI Corp. agreed — showing the ongoing active hurricane era remains strong despite the “aberration” that was the 2006 season.

Adding to the chorus of forecasters calling for a busy Atlantic hurricane season, experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center said Tuesday they are projecting a 75% chance that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will be above normal, while WSI Corp. agreed — showing the ongoing active hurricane era remains strong despite the “aberration” that was the 2006 season.

Reading between the lines from the experts gathered at GasMart 2007 in Chicago last week, domestic and Canadian natural gas production are at their limits and demand is increasing. Pipelines from the far north are years, possibly multiple decades or lifetimes away. Conventional wisdom is that liquefied natural gas (LNG) from overseas will fill in the gap; but will it? And what happens if it doesn’t?