Instead

Hoping for higher natural gas prices is not a strategy for El Paso Corp., CEO Doug Foshee said Friday. Instead, his company plans to use substantial hedges, a liquid balance sheet and flexible spending to guard against an uncertain future.

Hoping for higher natural gas prices is not a strategy for El Paso Corp., CEO Doug Foshee said Friday. Instead, his company plans to use substantial hedges, a liquid balance sheet and flexible spending to guard against an uncertain future.

Traders looking for the expiring May natural gas futures contract to test psychological support at $3 were sorely disappointed Tuesday as it instead finished its run by gaining 6.8 cents over Monday’s close to terminate at $3.321. The June contract, which takes over Wednesday as the prompt month, added 7.8 cents to close at $3.440.

FERC Thursday approved four stipulation and consent agreements, requiring marketers and other energy firms to pay more than $8 million in civil penalties and disgorge approximately $4 million in unjust profits for allegedly engaging in fraudulent open-season bidding for natural gas transportation capacity on the Cheyenne Plains Natural Gas Co. pipeline. The agency also issued two orders to show cause resulting from an 18-month investigation into the illegal activity.

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Alaska unit has put on hold its drilling and exploration plans in the Beaufort Sea in 2009 to focus on court challenges. Instead, the unit will prepare drilling plans for 2010 and 2011.

Royal Dutch Shell plc’s Alaska unit has put on hold its drilling and exploration plans in the Beaufort Sea in 2009 to focus on court challenges. Instead, the unit will prepare drilling plans for 2010 and 2011.

Choosing to respond to renewed strength in the U.S. dollar instead of a bullish natural gas storage injection report of only 12 Bcf, December natural gas futures sank back below the $7 mark in Thursday morning trade. Thursday ended up bringing the contract’s streak of higher closes to an end at four as December futures finished at $6.979, down 27 cents from Wednesday’s close.

Shifting global gas supply and demand fundamentals have moved Kitimat LNG Inc. to revise its plans for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to instead construct an export terminal near Kitimat, British Columbia (BC), on the Bish Cove site where it had planned to construct the import facility.

Shifting global gas supply and demand fundamentals have moved Kitimat LNG Inc. to revise its plans for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal to instead construct an export terminal near Kitimat, British Columbia (BC), on the Bish Cove site where it had planned to construct the import facility.