Explosion

Still trying to sort out the market’s direction following August futures’ 38.5-cent explosion higher last Thursday, the front-month contract on Monday scouted lower values in the morning before rebounding into the afternoon. At the end of Monday’s regular session, the result was similar to Friday’s noncommittal tenth-of-a-cent gain as August natural gas added two pennies to close at $3.689.

“Irrational exuberance” is the way at least one energy trader classified Monday’s explosion higher in natural gas futures values. In spite of bearish fundamentals, the July contract jumped 41.4 cents higher to close at $4.249 as some market experts pointed fingers at fresh speculative money flooding into commodities.

Proving that Thursday’s explosion to the upside was less of an aberration than many had expected, the rally in natural gas futures showed some staying power Friday as the April contract closed at $4.227, up 5.3 cents from Thursday and 29.5 cents higher than the previous week’s finish.

Two weeks after an explosion and fire on a third-party pipeline shut in their natural gas processing complex in East Texas, DCP Midstream LLC and its master limited partnership DCP Midstream Partners LP said that they have partially restarted operations.

Two weeks after an explosion and fire on a third-party pipeline shut in their natural gas processing complex in East Texas, DCP Midstream LLC and its master limited partnership DCP Midstream Partners LP said late Wednesday that they have partially restarted operations.

Prior to an explosion and fire around midday at the DCP Midstream East Texas Plant at the Carthage Hub (see related story), Gulf South said it had been notified Wednesday by DCP Midstream that a gas quality issue discovered during maintenance begun Tuesday by Gulf South (see Daily GPI, Feb. 6) would require the continued shut-in of two plant-related points. In a related note, TGT said DCP Midstream had called Wednesday to say their Champlin interconnect was being shut in until further notice “due to operational issues at their plant.”

EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. settled a lawsuit brought by a New Mexico man who was burned in an explosion at the Lisbon Valley natural gas plant in 2004 (see Daily GPI, Aug. 30). Details were to be confidential. Following six days of testimony in a jury trial in U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell’s courtroom in Salt Lake City, the EnCana subsidiary on Aug. 27 was found 100% liable for Michael Melton’s injuries. The jury was determining compensatory damages and a possible punitive judgment against EnCana when the private settlement was reached late Thursday. When Melton was injured in 2004, the plant was owned by Denver-based Tom Brown Inc. (TBI), which was bought by Calgary-based EnCana Corp. (see Daily GPI, April 16, 2004). TBI’s operations were merged with those of EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) in 2005.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) last Tuesday cited the inaction of Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSEG) as the “probable cause” of an explosion and fire on a natural gas distribution line in Bergenfield, NJ, that caused three fatalities, injured five persons and destroyed an apartment building in December 2005.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Tuesday cited the inaction of Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSEG) as the “probable cause” of an explosion and fire on a natural gas distribution line in Bergenfield, NJ, that caused three fatalities, injured five persons and destroyed an apartment building in December 2005.