Middle

With the middle-of-the-road natural gas storage report unable to exert any influence on the natural gas futures market, the newly-minted prompt month was left with no other choice than to follow big brother crude’s lead lower in Thursday trading.

For the first time since the middle of last summer, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) last Wednesday called a Stage 1 power alert, driven mostly by a temperature spike statewide that caught the grid operator by surprise. Peak demand on Wednesday shot all the way up to nearly 40,000 MW, which was about 4,000 MW more than expected.

The 310 MW public sector power plant that received final state approvals earlier this month, Magnolia Power Project, owes its status as the first baseload facility to be built in years in the center of the Los Angeles Basin to a readily available and flexible natural gas and water infrastructure that could only be found at an existing urban power plant site in a heavy industry sector.

Saying it was “experiencing significant linepack loss in the middle of the system while withdrawing at maximum rates from all storage fields,” Tennessee issued an OFO Balancing Alert Friday for all LMS-MA Balancing Parties with meters located in Zones 1 through 4 or in Zone 5 upstream of the Checks (Main Line Valves 245 and 321). Penalties of $15/Dth plus the applicable regional daily spot price will be assessed on shippers whose takes exceed the greater of 500 dekatherms or 102% over scheduled quantities. Penalties will not apply to customers who overdeliver into the system or undertake out of the system, Tennessee said.

El Paso Corp. has sold its rights to a 17-year supply (2.4 billion cubic meters or 1.8 million tons per year) of Norwegian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and about one-third of the import capacity at the Cove Point, MD LNG terminal to Statoil for $210 million.

El Paso Corp. has sold its rights to a 17-year supply (2.4 billion cubic meters or 1.8 million tons per year) of Norwegian liquefied natural gas (LNG) and about one-third of the import capacity at the Cove Point, MD LNG terminal to Statoil for $210 million.

Tractebel is in the process of buying bankrupt Enron Corp.’s proposed LNG terminal in the Bahamas and the associated $132 million Bahamas-to-Broward County, FL, Calypso pipeline project, which would bring the regasified liquefied natural gas to the U.S. pipeline grid. A Tractebel spokeswoman said the deal should be completed by this week following bankruptcy court review last Thursday.

A feasibility study on a Mackenzie Delta pipeline won’t be ready before the middle of 2003, and a completed project’s timing now falls between 2007-2010, said a Shell Canada Ltd. executive last week. Shell Canada is one of the partners in a consortium to move natural gas from the prolific region, but despite the delay, the company has begun buying more land and developing the frontier basin in anticipation of laying a pipe.

A feasibility study on a Mackenzie Delta pipeline won’t be ready before the middle of 2003, and a completed project’s timing now falls between 2007-2010, said a Shell Canada Ltd. executive Monday. Shell Canada is one of the partners in a consortium to move natural gas from the prolific region, but despite the delay, the company has begun buying more land and developing the frontier basin in anticipation of laying a pipe.