Multiple

Mexican legislators challenging the multiple service contracts (MSC) enacted by Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) two years ago appear to have lost court battles to prevent foreign investment through this type of contract in the country’s natural gas resources. Pemex said Sunday two of the four demands have been resolved in its favor, and two more favorable rulings are expected.

Putting in yet another multiple record-breaking trade day, January natural gas on Tuesday gained 50+ cents for the second consecutive session to settle at $15.378, up 53.7 cents from Monday. In addition to eclipsing the old all-time high prompt month settle of $14.994 (Dec. 8), the January contract also set a new spot month high of $15.78 during the day, which was high enough to exceed January’s life-of-contract high of $15.600 (Oct. 5).

Kerr-McGee Corp. said late Monday it has entered into sales agreements with multiple parties to sell some noncore assets located in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Colorado and Wyoming. The sales, which are expected to net the company about $330 million, are part of a previously announced divestiture program of select U.S. onshore oil and natural gas properties.

Texas Eastern said it has or will be evacuating facilities in its South Texas and West Louisiana zones, meaning multiple compressor stations in the zones will be shut down and capacity will be reduced. Tetco is restricting receipts at certain locations in order to protect the integrity of its system and is force balancing receipt points and TABS pools to reflect actual flows. Due to limited manpower, the pipeline will be suspending the hourly batch nomination validations and reverting back to the four NAESB timelines for purposes of nomination, scheduling and confirming. The pipeline said it has capacity available in zones downstream of South Texas and East Texas for shippers to source alternative supplies. However, zones M1 and M2 have been restricted to capacity through the Sarahsville compressor station. Nomination increases for receipts between Vidor and Sarahsville for delivery outside that area will not be accepted.

Mexico’s Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has changed the name of its Multiple Service Contracts (MSC) office to “New E&P Contracts” office to respond to exploration and production challenges and to increase its business opportunities. MSCs, which were enacted by the government three years ago, allow for private investment in state-owned exploration and production (see Daily GPI, Jan. 4, 2002).

Severe thunderstorms knocked out multiple natural gas processing plants near Empress, AB, on Tuesday evening, affecting several Bcf/d of processing capacity and significant production of ethane, propane and other gas liquids. TransCanada PipeLines said six processing plants and related operations lost power and suffered some damage, including plants owned by ConocoPhillips, EnCana, Atco, Inter Pipeline and BP Canada. No injuries were reported in any of the outages.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is taking comments on multiple issues related to the loan guarantee provisions of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act, which authorizes the secretary of Energy to issue federal loan guarantees to facilitate construction of a pipeline or liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to bring gas from the Alaska North Slope to the continental United States.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is taking comments on multiple issues related to the loan guarantee provisions of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Act, which authorizes the secretary of Energy to issue federal loan guarantees to facilitate construction of a pipeline or liquefied natural gas (LNG) project to bring gas from the Alaska North Slope to the continental United States.

Multiple bearish factors seemed to converge on Thursday and Friday to keep downward pressure on the natural gas cash market. As Gulf production resumed after Tropical Storm Bonnie and Hurricane Charley made landfall, traders were faced with below normal temperatures, cooling rains from the storms and a continuation of higher than expected storage injections. That last item could be the one that has the most lasting impact, according to Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers.