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UGI Corp. subsidiary UGI Energy Services LLC has placed its newly-constructed 28-mile gathering pipeline and compressor station into full service. The Auburn pipeline extension provides gas supplies to local consumers in Pennsylvania, while also providing access to interstate markets for Marcellus Shale producers. The $160 million, 20-inch pipeline will initially deliver 200 MMcf/d of locally produced natural gas through UGI Energy’s Manning compressor station in Wyoming County, PA. to UGI Penn Natural Gas Inc., one of that company’s utilities and the interstate pipeline Transcontinental.

Prices for physical natural gas traded Monday for Tuesday delivery spiked in response to a Polar Vortex and record cold temperatures sweeping across the country. The day recorded the three highest prices ever published in NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index (see chart). Biggest gainers on the day proved to be points in and around New York City.

California regulators start the new year with a focus on two areas: gas pipeline safety issues continuing since the San Bruno transmission line failure and explosion three years ago (see Daily GPI, Sept. 13, 2010), and how to deal with the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in Southern California (see Daily GPI, June 10, 2013).

U.S. energy financial chiefs are feeling more optimistic than they did a year ago about the domestic economy and what’s ahead for the oil and natural gas sector in 2014, BDO USA LLP reported Monday.

A district court judge in Pennsylvania has ruled that ExxonMobil Corp. subsidiary XTO Energy Inc. will face criminal charges, finding that there is enough evidence for a full trial in a closely watched case to prosecute the company for several felonies.

Arctic temperatures sweeping much of the country in a Polar Vortex strained pipeline throughputs and pushed natural gas spot prices to record highs in the Northeast. Transco Zone 6 non-NY next-day prices shot higher by $59.76 to average $70.66/MMBtu, while Transco Zone 5 increased by $61.27 to average $72.43/MMBtu, according to NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index.

The amount of North Dakota’s added state revenues from a post-Christmas state Supreme Court ruling is still unknown and will take some time to resolve, according to Lance Gaebe, commissioner of the Department of Trust Lands.

Pennant Midstream LLC said Monday that its $375 million Hickory Bend Processing Plant and wet-gas gathering system is fully operational, with company officials expecting the plant to begin accepting natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) by the end of the first quarter.

Winter storm Hercules, which produced record cold in areas of the United States and dropped more than a foot of snow in the Northeast, dominated the attention of gas traders for the holiday-shortened Dec. 31-Jan. 3 trading week. While a number of regions surveyed saw small declines in average prices for the week, stout gains in the East pushed NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas Average up 94 cents to $5.41/MMBtu with a wide range of individual trades from $1.50 at Tranco-Leidy Line to $39.00 at Transco Zone 6-NY.