Healthy

Forecasts of moderately higher natural gas demand, a spike in domestic output, a “healthy and comfortable” level of storage, a slightly warmer winter and a stagnant economy point to flat pressure on wholesale gas prices going into the winter heating season, although there may not be an “overnight impact” on consumer bills, according to the Natural Gas Supply Association’s (NGSA) winter outlook released Thursday.

Even with the Gulf of Mexico shut-in from hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the natural gas industry was still able to inject a healthy 67 Bcf into underground storage for the week ended Sept. 12, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The injection was large enough to bring October natural gas futures back well below $8 in Thursday trade.

El Paso Corp., which has doubled its natural gas pipeline backlog from a year ago with eight projects on the drawing board, delivered a solid quarterly report, with profit rising 22%.

The fundamentals are in place for exploration and production (E&P) companies to spend more on drilling programs and deliver a healthy return on the money they spend, provided they earn a New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas price of around $8.75/Mcf, according to energy analyst John Gerdes.

The fundamentals are in place for exploration and production (E&P) companies to spend more on drilling programs and deliver a healthy return on the money they spend, provided they earn a New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas price of around $8.75/Mcf, according to energy analyst John Gerdes.

Despite missing out on the Independence Hub’s 900 MMcf/d of production for more than a month, the natural gas industry proved Thursday that it can still put healthy injections into storage after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that 93 Bcf was deposited for the week ended May 9.

Apache Corp. reported a 5% decline in quarterly profit Thursday, but the Houston-based independent showed gains on natural gas price realizations and an healthy increase in U.S. and Canadian gas production.

The North American gas transmission and distribution (T&D) industry looks healthy for the rest of this year and into 2008, but the credit crunch threatens to slow down capital spending and the acquisition market, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

Despite having two tropical storms and a number of other disturbances on the weather radar, the nonthreatening tracks of the storms combined with a healthy storage build to help November natural gas futures work lower in its first regular session action as front month. On Thursday, the contract settled at $6.919, down 12.7 cents from Wednesday.