Gives

Chiming in on an ongoing dispute that has all parties involved in need of a few aspirin, Bayer Corp. said Thursday that it is urging the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration to lift restrictions on natural gas production in the Gulf of Mexico and the Outer Continental shelf and to encourage more natural gas supplies from Canada.

Softer cash prices ahead of the weekend and forecasts suggesting there will be little additional weather-related demand this week were enough Friday to put the kibosh on any chance for a short-covering rally in natural gas futures. With that the May contract completed its penultimate trading day in an exceedingly lackluster session that featured a razor thin 4-cent trading range. It closed at $5.477, up 0.3 cents from Thursday’s close.

A recent legislative proposal floated by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) that would allow states to coordinate their own regional transmission and market designs through so-called regional energy services commissions (RESC) drew a bevy of skeptical comments from several electric industry representatives at a Senate hearing on Thursday.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last Wednesday issued favorable rulings for Duke Energy’s Egan Hub Partners LP to proceed with further expansion of its storage facility in Louisiana, and for Montana-based Energy West Development Inc. to convert a liquid products pipeline to natural gas service in the West.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Wednesday issued favorable rulings for Duke Energy’s Egan Hub Partners LP to proceed with further expansion of its storage facility in Louisiana, and for Montana-based Energy West Development Inc. to convert a liquid products pipeline to natural gas service in the West.

With little in the way of fresh fundamental or technical news, natural gas futures traders played it safe Tuesday as they remained mostly on the sidelines in the abbreviated pre-holiday session. Gas futures trading shut down at 1 p.m. EST Tuesday and was set to re-open with Access trading Wednesday at 7 p.m. What activity there was Tuesday was dominated by locals who sold futures early only to cover those shorts late in the session. The net result was a market basically unchanged for the session. February closed the year at $4.789, down 1.1 cents on the day. Estimated volume was 48,835.

Tulsa, OK-based Williams Energy Partners LP (WEP), a partnership that transports and stores refined products and ammonia, sought to distance itself from troubled Williams Cos. Inc. last week by making changes to its partnership agreement to give greater control to unitholders.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week handed out certificates for a pipeline expansion in the Mid-Atlantic region and a new Gulf Coast storage project, and issued a preliminary determination (PD) on non-environmental grounds for an expansion at El Paso’s Elba Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Georgia. All of the projects are designed to serve growing gas demand, primarily from gas-fired power generation, in the Southeast region.

FERC Commissioner Linda K. Breathitt was feted by her colleagues at last Wednesday’s regular Commission meeting, which she acknowledged was “very likely to be my last.”