Hovering

With the price of crude oil hovering around $135 a barrel, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin Monday called on Congress to open a small part of the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling, as well as lift the moratorium on exploration and development in much of the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

With oil prices hovering around $100/bbl and natural gas trading below $8/Mcf, gas deliveries to dual-fired power plants jumped last year and likely will continue, Bentek Energy LLC reported.

With oil prices hovering around $100/bbl and natural gas trading below $8/Mcf, gas deliveries to dual-fired power plants jumped last year, Bentek Energy LLC reported Wednesday.

With natural gas futures prices stabilizing in the $7-8/MMBtu region and crude futures hovering around $60/bbl, it appears that North American producers are upping their drilling activity to capture profits from the higher prices. According to Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc., the North American count of rigs actively exploring for or developing oil and natural gas during February increased fairly significantly over both January 2007 and February 2006 tallies.

With natural gas futures prices stabilizing in the $7-8/MMBtu region and crude futures hovering around $60/bbl, it appears that North American producers are upping their drilling activity to capture profits from the higher prices. According to Houston-based Baker Hughes Inc., the North American count of rigs actively exploring for or developing oil and natural gas during February increased fairly significantly over both January 2007 and February 2006 tallies.

With its linepack hovering around minimum target levels, Pacific Gas & Electric issued a customer-specific OFO for Thursday.

With natural gas storage levels high and gas prices hovering lower, energy analysts last week were trying to figure out what effect the high storage levels are having on prices and demand destruction.

Despite gas prices hovering near $11 currently and averaging $7.17/MMBtu so far this year (Henry Hub cash bidweek) mainly on fears of a supply shortage, the Potential Gas Committee’s latest report on the nation’s gas resources shows a total available gas resource of 1,308.3 Tcf, or nearly 70 years of gas supply produced near the current annual rate. The problem, according to the American Gas Association (AGA), is accessing that supply.

There is still some potential silver lining in the one major dark cloud hovering around San Diego-based Sempra Energy’s otherwise bullish future, according to an analysis released Friday by Washington, DC-based Stanford Washington Research Group. The dark cloud is the trial scheduled later this year in a California Superior Court regarding allegations of California-Arizona border wholesale natural gas price fixing. The potential silver lining hangs on possible FERC preemption and the filed rate doctrine.