Further

Prices fell further at a large majority of locations Friday as it appeared that a tropical storm heading toward Texas would spare most offshore production and heat forecasts weren’t strong enough to avert market softness. Even the lack of a weekend industrial load loss in Friday’s trading was unable to support pricing.

No hearings have been set as yet for deciding the fate of several natural gas safety bills alive in the California legislature. They will wait for further committee hearings in mid-August when state lawmakers return from a month-long recess that begins Friday. Meanwhile, a number of other states are considering fracking and/or pipeline safety legislative proposals, including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Texas.

It wasn’t the overload of Marcellus Shale supplies, but poor planning by Columbia Gas Transmission LLC that “may have created or contributed” to the storage constraints on its system in northern Ohio, Indicated Shippers said in a protest to the pipeline request for a tariff increase.

No hearings have been set as yet for deciding the fate of several natural gas safety bills alive in the California legislature. They will wait for further committee hearings in mid-August when state lawmakers return from a month-long recess that begins Friday.

The cash market saw further drops at all points except one Friday. There was little change in overall weather-based load for the weekend as small temperature gains in some sections were largely balanced by slight cooling trends, while some areas were seeing little change in their forecasts.

West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Randy Huffman told NGI’s Shale Daily it is unlikely that the DEP would honor a request by the City of Morgantown to issue a stop work order on two Marcellus Shale gas wells in the city’s industrial park.

As a further demonstration that it’s a more transparent world for natural gas pipeline operations in California, Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E) on Thursday outlined efforts to step up safety and maintenance following the pipeline explosion in San Bruno, CA, last year.

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) last Thursday amended permits for two Marcellus Shale gas wells being erected in Morgantown to include closed-loop drilling systems, but it has no plans at this time to make the systems a statewide requirement.

FERC on Wednesday approved Questar Pipeline Co.’s request to further extend its southern transmission system, giving shippers access to natural gas supplies in the Uintah Basin of Utah.