Finished

Saying FERC staff has only “scratched the surface of the amount of material in hand,” a FERC staff member on Tuesday used prepared testimony to recommend further review of Enron Power Marketing Inc. (EPMI) energy trader audio tapes of telephone conversations [EL03-180, et al.].

Cheyenne Plains Gas Pipeline, a subsidiary of El Paso Corp., hasn’t even finished constructing its 380-mile line to deliver Rocky Mountain natural gas supplies to eastern markets, and FERC has issued a certificate to expand the system.

Cheyenne Plains Gas Pipeline, a subsidiary of El Paso Corp., hasn’t even finished constructing its 380-mile line to deliver Rocky Mountain natural gas supplies to eastern marketers, and FERC has issued a certificate to expand the system.

Adding to gains notched Thursday, the natural gas futures market finished the week on a positive note Friday as continued end-user buying met with pre-weekend commercial and speculative short-covering. And though the 4.5-cent advance and $5.552 close in the September contract was not shabby, it paled in comparison to the gains in this winter’s strip, which advanced 12.9 cents to close for the week at $6.877. At 68,647, volume in the gas pit was relatively light Friday.

Capping off a wild week of trading that saw wide swings, the June natural gas futures contract finished the week at $6.353, down 4.8 cents from last Friday’s $6.401 close. The big news on Friday was the strength of natural gas, despite a crude futures sell-off.

Following its test of the $6 resistance on Monday, May natural gas futures finished the week on a four-day slide lower, closing 12.4 cents down on Friday at $5.610. Some analysts looked to the country’s current weather pattern, as well as the storage situation, for answers, taking into account Thursday’s slightly bearish EIA storage report.

Construction of the deepest deepwater tension leg in the world is finished and installation of the platform rig will begin on the Marco Polo, a unique Gulf of Mexico floating production system, slated to go into operation in July. GulfTerra Energy Partners and Cal Dive International own the platform structure, and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is the operator. Marco Polo was designed to accommodate production from six development wells at a discovery at Green Canyon Block 608. The production system is set in 4,300 feet of water about 160 miles south of New Orleans. With the deepwater tension leg complete, installation of the platform rig and the tiebacks is next. Production capacity is 120,000 bbl/d and 300 MMcf/d. Weather delays “persisted beyond our estimates and caused us some delay in the start-up,” said Mark Pease, Anadarko’s vice president of U.S. onshore and offshore. Ramp-up had originally been scheduled in the first quarter. The plan calls for the oil production to be transported through a 34-mile, 14-inch pipeline. The system would use the Allegheny oil pipeline, where onshore markets would be accessed through the Poseidon Oil Pipeline System. A gas pipeline also is scheduled to connect to a point determined by Anadarko.

Construction of the deepest deepwater tension leg in the world is finished and installation of the platform rig will begin on the Marco Polo, a unique Gulf of Mexico floating production system, slated to go into operation in July. GulfTerra Energy Partners and Cal Dive International own the platform structure, and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is the operator.

After moving to either side of unchanged, the natural gas futures market finished in slightly positive territory Wednesday as concerns over a large storage number edged out forecasts calling for wide temperature swings over the next couple of weeks. At $6.387, the February contract was up 5.8 cents for the session, but well below its intra-day high of $6.58. At 70,004, estimated volume was moderate.