Morning

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is asking state lawmakers to hold firm on local zoning restrictions included in legislation to impose an impact fee on natural gas drillers.

EQT Corp. is suspending its Huron Shale program “indefinitely” in light of low commodity prices, the Pittsburgh company announced in a one line statement Friday.

Denver-based Venoco Inc., an independent exploration and production (E&P) company in California’s oil-dominated Monterey Shale, said Monday CEO Tim Marquez intends to buy back all the publicly held shares of the company he founded, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Gulfstream ended Thursday morning the Operations Advisory it had issued on Dec. 2 due to high linepack.

On the final evening of debate before state lawmakers recessed for the year, critics of a impact fee in Pennsylvania fought to increase the amount of revenue raised by the proposal.

Natural gas futures traders essentially brushed off the bearish news Thursday morning from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that 78 Bcf was injected into underground stores for the week ending Oct. 28. The injection was at the very top of industry estimates going into the report. December natural gas futures ended up adding 2.9 cents over Wednesday’s finish to close at $3.778.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline on Tuesday morning informed its customers that it is lifting its imbalance warning in Zone 4 on the 300 Line. However, the pipeline continues to request that all parties match physical flow with scheduled quantities.

Although Destin lifted Thursday morning a force majeure that it had declared two days earlier due to issues at an onshore liquids handling facility (see Daily GPI, Sept. 1), that afternoon it reported being unable to provide transportation services from its offshore receipt points due to the approach of a tropical depression (which became Tropical Storm Lee on Friday). Onshore receipt and delivery points were not affected.

Hurricane Irene, which was upgraded to a Category Three hurricane Wednesday morning, is expected to continue to strengthen as it moves away from the Bahamas, turning to a more northerly track and more closely approaching the coastline in the Mid-Atlantic or New England sometime this weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).