Florida

With the potentially catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Irma maintaining its collision course with the Florida coast, Southeast utilities continued to brace for impact Thursday as the market braces for natural gas demand destruction.

Hurricane Irma, a catastrophic Category 5 storm that was barreling through the Caribbean on Wednesday, is likely to have some impact on natural gas markets if it strikes the United States, which forecasters were anticipating.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday approved plans by JAX LNG LLC to operate a second waterfront liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Florida to conduct ship-to-ship bunkering operations beginning next year.

FERC on Monday authorized Sabal Trail Transmission LLC to place more of the natural gas project’s Phase 1 facilities into service, increasing its total capacity to 830,000 Dth/d.

Sabal Trail Transmission LLC is seeking FERC authorization to place part of its 1.07 million Dth/d pipeline into service by the end of this month.

Physical natural gas for Friday delivery gained ground in Thursday’s trading as an abrupt cool-down was forecast to bring eastern points off their recent abnormal highs closer to seasonal norms.

Hurricane Matthew continued to batter Florida’s east coast Friday, knocking out electricity to hundreds of thousands, resulting in a 0.5 Bcf/d drop in natural gas demand in the state, but the longer-term impact on natural gas facilities seemed slight.

Three-day deals became a tough sell in Friday’s trading as Hurricane Matthew moved up the Florida coast, and gas for weekend and Monday delivery fell by double-digits, although most points declined by a dime or less.

Next-day natural gas bounded higher in Thursday’s trading despite the tendency for physical traders to attempt to get deals done ahead of the 10:30 a.m. EDT release of inventory data by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).