natural gas prices

North America’s unconventionals, oilfield services and midstreamers offered nice paybacks to investors last year, according to IHS Inc.

Two of the natural gas industry’s major organizations said Monday they have merged their efforts to promote natural gas vehicles (NGV) into the Washington, DC-based NGVAmerica organization, moving a more recent collaboration known as the “Drive Natural Gas Initiative” into the longer-established advocacy organization headed by industry veteran Richard Kolodziej.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell on Friday introduced legislation to advance the state’s Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which would commercialize the state’s long-stranded North Slope gas.

Hess Corp. plans to spend $5.8 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2014, and will devote nearly half of that amount to developing its assets in the Bakken and Utica shales, with emphasis on the Bakken.

CGG, a geological and reservoir services company, has completed a three-year, 1,566-square-mile seismic survey program for multiple clients in the Marcellus Shale fairway. The Paris-based company said the program is believed to be the largest combined onshore seismic survey ever conducted in the United States. It was completed in six phases that covered Lycoming, Tioga, Clinton, Centre and Clearfield counties in central Pennsylvania. The survey was aimed at providing a multi-client data library of shale acreage in the play to optimize drilling and completion programs. By the end of 2014, the company expects to make data from all six phases available, which draw from more than 118,000 shots and millions of receiver locations.

Spot natural gas for weekend and Monday delivery was markedly higher on average in Friday’s trading, but there was a wide variation of prices in that mix.

Michael Picker, 62, has been named to the California Public Utilities Commission by Gov. Jerry Brown. Mark Ferron resigned from the five-member regulatory panel for health reasons (see Daily GPI, Jan. 16). Picker, a director of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, plans to resign that position before joining the commission. The appointment requires confirmation by the state Senate.

It was a week of all positives for NGI’s weekly spot gas prices as every market point registered gains, from as little as a quarter to as much as $70 for the week ended Jan. 24. Nationally prices rose $3.58 to average $8.17, but there was a wide variance. The onslaught of Polar Vortex II made sure the Northeast experienced the greatest advances with several points making double-digit dollar gains and new record highs recorded with some points in and around New York City registering high trades from $125 to $140.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has authorized the transfer of certain natural gas distribution facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas from Oneok Inc. to ONE Gas Inc. as part of a company reorganization (CP13-550-000). The FERC order came three weeks after the board of directors on Wednesday unanimously approved the separation of the company’s natural gas distribution business into ONE Gas, a stand-alone, publicly traded company (see Daily GPI, Jan. 8). ONE Gas would consist of Kansas Gas Service, Oklahoma Natural Gas Co. and Texas Gas Service, and be headquartered in Tulsa. It would be one of the largest natural gas utilities in the United States, serving more than two million customers in three states, and a 100% regulated, publicly traded natural gas utility. The plan to spin off the utility business was announced in 2013 (see Daily GPI, July 26, 2013). ONE Gas common stock is expected to begin “regular-way” trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday (Feb. 3) under the symbol “OGS.”