Increasingly

As mega-marketers crumble, producers and end users in search of a new middleman are increasingly going to regional utilities and small regional marketers, looking for service and people with whom they can build a lasting business relationship. One relatively new start-up filling the bill is National Gas Distributors (NGD), a 16-month-old marketing company operating in the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee.

As mega-marketers crumble, producers and end users in search of a new middleman are increasingly going to regional utilities and small regional marketers, looking for service and people with whom they can build a lasting business relationship. One relatively new start-up filling the bill is National Gas Distributors (NGD), a 16-month-old marketing company operating in the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee.

With natural-gas industry attention increasingly focused on costs in Canada, Westcoast Energy Inc. pared 20% off the price tag for its 200 MMcf/d expansion project on its mainline in British Columbia. The subsidiary of Duke Energy cut the budget to C$270 million (US$175 million) from C$338 million (US$220 million) without cutting the amount of the added capacity by making a deal with another B.C. pipeline.

Natural gas storage facilities are busting at the seams right now, causing analysts to be increasingly bearish about December prices. The American Gas Association (AGA) reported last Wednesday the industry was still putting in more inventories during the third full week of November in reaction to mild weather, low prices and lack of demand. With the 12 Bcf injection AGA reported last Wednesday, storage is at a new record high of 3,144 Bcf and the year-on-year storage deficit is at a crushing 642 Bcf, leaving a glut of gas supply on the market that will put severe downward pressure on spot prices for months to come, according to analysts.

Natural gas prices remained on a roller coaster ride of volatility yesterday as bull traders used the latest storage data as a battering ram to propel prices higher in the last 30 minutes of trading. The December contract received the biggest buying boost, posting a 10.8-cent gain at $3.291. The 12-month strip lagged only slightly, advancing 8.4 cents to close at $3.383.

The “evolution” of natural gas storage into an arbitrage tool increasingly utilized by marketing companies may be leading some industry observers to misinterpret the results of the American Gas Association’s (AGA) weekly storage report and the changes in storage levels over time, according to TXU Chairman David Biegler.

California regulators are getting backlogged with key issues they must resolve in the increasingly complex and tight time frame that is left to fashion an economic solution to the state’s energy woes–regardless of how events unfold at the federal level. There is little more than a month for actions that would keep on track the state’s proposed bond sale, which now is slated for late summer or early fall.

Business customers of the investor-owned utilities in California are increasingly concerned about the lingering energy crisis that has spiked electricity and natural gas prices and fomented uncertainty about supplies, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. (LAEDC).

It appears increasingly likely that development of 35 Tcf of gasreserves in Alaska and another 6-9 Tcf in the Mackenzie Deltaregion of the Northwest Territories will be headed down parallelbut separate paths. Both projects, however, seem to be picking upspeed in reaction to the current favorable market situation.