Increasingly

The inflection point in U.S. gas market fundamentals likely will be realized this month, with the market increasingly undersupplied through the spring of 2010, energy analysts said last week.

The inflection point in U.S. gas market fundamentals likely will be realized this month, and the market will become increasingly undersupplied through the spring of 2010, energy analysts said Wednesday.

The domestic natural gas market should reach a “fundamental inflection point” in June and be “increasingly underbalanced” in the last half of the year, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (STRH) analysts said Thursday.

The domestic natural gas market should reach a “fundamental inflection point” in June and be “increasingly underbalanced” in the last half of the year, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (STRH) analysts said Thursday.

San Diego, CA-based Sempra Energy’s two utilities are the first in California to react to the increasingly sour economy in its headquarters state and nationwide, urging its retail utility customers Wednesday to seek various assistance programs offered by the utilities — Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) and San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E).

FERC Thursday upheld its final transparency rule (Order 704-A), which will provide regulators with additional information on natural gas prices and the size of the physical gas market, as well as enable them to assess the effectiveness of the index pricing regime.

Producer shippers are increasingly stepping up commitments to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners’ (KMP) new natural gas pipeline projects out of the Rocky Mountain area, and as the pipelines move closer to the major markets, there is more interest among local distribution companies (LDC) in taking capacity, generating a producer-push/market-pull effect to get new infrastructure in place.

Producer shippers are increasingly stepping up commitments to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners’ (KMP) new natural gas pipeline projects out of the Rocky Mountain area, and as the pipelines move closer to the major markets, there is more interest among local distribution companies (LDC) in taking capacity, generating a producer-push/market-pull effect to get new infrastructure in place.

Economics in the western Canadian natural gas patch and the movement of increasingly more Rockies supplies east is being felt more in terms of wholesale price and supply pressures in the Pacific Northwest, according to Northwest Natural Gas Corp.’s CEO Mark Dodson. As a result, the need for siting a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the region is growing, he said during a 2007 earnings conference call Feb. 14.