Hampered

Maine Natural Gas (MNG), which has seen its plans to build an 80-mile-long natural gas pipeline to the state capital and the surrounding Kennebec Valley hampered by a competitor’s challenge, has signed a 10-year agreement to supply gas to a new regional hospital in Augusta. It’s a deal that could help MNG build the pipeline even if the state isn’t a customer.

While lower profits in its merchant generation business and a decrease in weather-related energy sales hampered Dominion Resources Inc.’s full-year and 4Q2011 earnings, the Richmond, VA-based company said it has made “significant progress” in developing infrastructure projects to serve the robust shale gas production from the Marcellus and surrounding plays.

Extensive rain and flooding have hampered MDU Resources Group Inc.’s operations and delayed growth activity in key producing states in the Rocky Mountain region, including the Bakken Shale, to such an extent that the company is lowering its 2011 natural gas and oil production forecasts.

The pace of development at Encana Corp. was hampered in 2010 by low natural gas prices, but farm-ins, partnerships and joint ventures (JV) similar to the $5.4 billion transaction with an affiliate of PetroChina International Ltd. will help the company double its production growth over the next five years, CEO Randy Eresman said Thursday.

Damaged offshore natural gas pipelines, platforms and rigs, flooded onshore gas processing facilities and a lack of power hampered a quick return to normal operations last week for Gulf Coast facilities after Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston, TX, in the pre-dawn hours of Sept. 13.

While seasonal spreads in natural gas prices have contracted, to be sure, it hasn’t hampered the business of at least one gas storage developer/operator, who also believes wider spreads will return, thanks in part to liquefied natural gas (LNG).

While seasonal spreads in natural gas prices have contracted, to be sure, it hasn’t hampered the business of at least one gas storage developer/operator, who also believes wider spreads will return, thanks in part to liquefied natural gas (LNG).

While merchant industry “consolidation is inevitable,” NRG Energy CEO David Crane doesn’t see much action anytime soon. “I look around to see people to consolidate with, I see a lot of debt.” And, having emerged from bankruptcy with “a balance sheet on the edge of being sustainable,” Crane is not inclined “to go back into balance sheet soup.”

Rocky Mountain natural gas producers are not being hampered by inadequate pipeline capacity, the head of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States (IPAMS) told a joint House-Senate panel Thursday.