Immediately

Following the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) 46 Bcf natural gas storage withdrawal report Friday for the week ended Dec. 22, February natural gas immediately plunged to a low of $6.00 before rebounding just a minute later. In thin trading on the day, the prompt month settled early at 1 p.m. EST at $6.299, up 5.1 cents on the day but 51.1 cents lower for the week. January futures expired Wednesday at $5.838.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) said it is immediately beginning an environmental review of about 580,000 acres in the eastern Gulf of Mexico portion of the Lease Sale 181 area that will be made accessible to producers as a result of legislation approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush earlier this month (see Daily GPI, Dec. 21).

Questar declared an OFO late Thursday afternoon, saying that effective immediately until further notice, it is “requiring shippers and point operators to have production volumes match accepted nominations exactly, with zero tolerance allowed.” Due to a shut-in test at Clay Basin storage facility that began last Thursday and will run through Wednesday, Questar’s Clay Basin balancing account is not available. Questar said its system “is operating at close to capacity and the injection test [conducted last Wednesday] has placed added burden on operating conditions, resulting in minimal linepack being available for balancing.” See the bulletin board for more OFO information. Questar also said Friday that beginning Thursday (Oct. 19), all customers under the PAL1 rate schedule must withdraw all parked gas in their accounts at Clay Basin. It will contact each PAL1 customer individually about its required schedule of withdrawals.

Joseph (Joe) N. Jaggers has been hired as COO and president of the Bill Barrett Corp. effective immediately, the company announced Monday. Jaggers had been COO and president at the predecessor Barrett Resources Corp. (also started by Bill Barrett) when it was sold to Williams in 2001. Most recently he was regional vice president for E&P for Williams. The 52-year old Jaggers has had a 25-year career managing oil and gas operations, with significant experience in both conventional and unconventional operations such as tight gas and coal bed methane. Fred Barrett, Chairman and CEO, commented, “We are excited to add Joe to our experienced management team. He has a long record of achieving production and reserve growth and has operational experience in many of the same Rockies basins in which we operate, including the Piceance, Powder River, Wind River, Uinta, and Rocky Mountain Overthrust.

The U.S. Senate Friday confirmed by voice vote the nomination of former Idaho governor, Dirk Kempthorne, to be Secretary of the Interior. The voice vote occurred immediately following an 85-8 vote to invoke cloture, overriding a hold on the nomination.

April natural gas futures slipped a little lower temporarily in morning trade immediately after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday that only 55 Bcf was removed from underground storage for the week ended March 10. However, the prompt month came roaring back in the afternoon, recording a high of $7.370 before settling at $7.267, up 12.4 cents.

Citing an electrical problem at the Hastings Extraction Plant, Dominion said it was required to take most of its wet gas system out of service immediately Wednesday. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the outage is expected to last two days, it added. Dominion said it had made arrangements to move some of the wet gas off system to Equitrans. Production physically located in the 3401, 3402, 3403, 3404, 3405, 3406, 3407, 3408, 3409 bubbles behind Camden Station and bubbles 3304, 3305 and 3303 behind Kennedy Station may stay online during this outage, Dominion said, while pool operators must shut in all other gas in the wet system.

Boston-based Honeoye Storage said it is offering 160,000 dekatherms of firm storage space at its Rochester, NY, gas storage field for a term ending Dec. 15. Injections can begin immediately at a maximum daily rate of 8,000 Dth/d. The maximum withdrawal rate on the contract would be 4,000 Dth/d from Nov. 1 through Dec. 15. Honeoye will provide all the cushion gas required. The storage field is connected to Tennessee Gas Pipeline east of Rochester. Honeoye is owned by KeySpan, Consolidated Edison and three private developers. For details, go to www.honeoyestorage.com.

Three Democratic leaders of the House on Monday called on the Bush administration to act immediately to increase spending for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) this winter,