November

Drilling company GlobalSantaFe Corp. said its worldwide Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, or SCORE report, for November 2002 was down from the previous month’s SCORE by 1%. CEO Sted Garber said the SCORE in various international markets “continues to fluctuate. The offshore drilling rig market will likely be in a holding pattern until operators’ 2003 exploration and production budgets provide some direction.” The SCORE report compares the profitability of current mobile offshore drilling rig dayrates to the profitability of dayrates at the 1980-1981 peak of the offshore drilling cycle.

For the winter billing period of November through April, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Thursday its 3.8 million residential customers will receive baseline volume increases of 5% to 26% for the lowest natural gas rates that it charges.

Citing negotiations regarding some planned asset sales, Williams rescheduled its third-quarter earnings report for November to coincide with its Nov. 14 deadline to file its 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

FERC last Wednesday sought to bring clarity to when power sellers would be on the hook for refunds under a sweeping order issued last year. That order, issued Nov. 20, proposed to revise all existing market-based rate tariffs and authorizations to prohibit the exercise of market power and anticompetitive behavior.

Cash prices plummeted more than 30 cents at some points in the Rocky Mountain region Monday as western pipelines remained packed with gas, and maintenance reduced transportation out of the region. Late reports showed spot price lows in the $1.20s at Opal, WY after averaging in the $1.80s on Friday. Fifty-cent ranges were common throughout the Rockies.

The November aftermarket started out with a hodgepodge of price movement compared with both first-of-month indexes and end-of-October numbers. Generally the West could be characterized as moderately stronger in both instances Wednesday, while eastern points tended to range from flat to a few cents lower. But there were discrepancies, primarily in the East where scattered points realized gains from gas traded for Oct. 31 flow.

With wholesale gas costs plummeting, Dominion East Ohio Gas said its customers will pay 25% less for natural gas in November, December and January than they paid during the same months a year earlier. Under a gas cost recovery (GCR) decrease filed on Wednesday with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), Dominion East Ohio sales customers, starting Oct. 26, will pay $5.38/Mcf, down 12.8% from the current $6.17/Mcf and down 25% from the $7.18/Mcf they paid during the third quarter last year.

The National Energy Board has scheduled a public hearing in November to discuss an application by Petro-Canada Oil & Gas to construct a natural gas pipeline from the Medicine Hat, AB area to Burstall, SK. Petro-Canada proposes to construct a 42-mile-long 10-inch pipe from its existing production properties in Medicine Hat to TransCanada Pipeline Ltd.’s system near Burstall. The pipeline would have a design capacity to transport 53 MMcf/d.

The “unprecedented” high natural gas prices in the three-month period from November 2000 to January 2001 impacted not only natural gas liquids prices, but impacted how liquids were valued, according to a report by the Calgary-based National Energy Board. NEB said that as a result, NGL prices are “expected to continue to be influenced by both oil and gas prices.”