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Evidence that the gas-rich Barnett Shale remains on the industry’s front burner was easy to spot last week, as a new 42-inch diameter gas pipeline project was completed in the area by Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) and Crosstex Energy announced plans to build an $80 million natural gas processing facility.

In its first regular session as the front-month contract, May natural gas futures picked up where April left off — namely in search of higher price levels. The prompt-month contract reached a high of $9.830 before finishing the day at $9.800, up 11.3 cents from Thursday’s close and 66 cents higher than the previous week’s finish.

FERC Thursday approved Colorado Interstate Gas Co.’s (CIG) proposed expansion of its system to serve growing natural gas demand along the Colorado Front Range, particularly in the Denver metropolitan area.

FERC last Thursday approved Colorado Interstate Gas Co.’s (CIG) proposed expansion of its system to serve growing natural gas demand along the Colorado Front Range, particularly in the Denver metropolitan area.

April natural gas futures on Thursday — in its first regular session action as the front month contract — soared higher as the year-on-five-year average storage surplus contracted and crude futures notched another all-time high. The prompt-month natural gas futures contract jumped 38.3 cents on the day to close at $9.443, despite a storage withdrawal report that was well within expectations.

Spot prices soared as high as $16 Monday at Transco Zone 6-New York City as triple-digit spikes at Northeast citygates were way out in front of strong gains across the board. The weekend blast of cold across the Midwest and Northeast is proving to have more staying power and be more severe than forecasts had indicated late last week. The cash market also had support from last Friday’s 19.9-cent advance by March futures and the return of industrial load from weekend hiatus.

Forecasts of widespread areas of cooling rain in the Midwest and Northeast — and to a lesser degree in the South — along with a cold front due to move into much of the Midwest caused prices to retreat at most points Wednesday. Tuesday’s modest 6.9-cent slide in August futures also played a minor role in the overall softness.

The cash market advanced on all fronts Thursday, driven by gradually rising heat levels in several areas (not the Northeast, where a cold front was due to keep the region cool) and by support from a futures increase of 8.3 cents the day before.

CIG noted Friday that unseasonably cold weather had moved into its Front Range market region and was predicted to continue into this week. “With the high market demands anticipated for this period combined with high firm transportation load factors, CIG is concerned that our ability to absorb imbalances related to underdeliveries at receipt points or overdeliveries at delivery points will be limited to a significant degree,” it said. “Therefore, CIG expects operators to manage their confirmations to match flow rates to scheduled quantities, factoring in freeze-offs and other conditions as necessary, particularly while the cold weather impacts CIG’s field and pipeline operations.” At locations that are not flowing at scheduled rates, the pipeline plans to place underperformance caps during the scheduling process to reduce nominations to match such flow rates. No Notice shippers should anticipate that CIG will be able to support a maximum of 100,000 Dth/d of authorized delivery overruns, it said.