Occurred

The meltdown occurred as expected Thursday in the cash market.Few points escaped with declines of less than 20 cents, with thegreatest losses of around 40 cents at the linepack-saturatedNorthern California points of Malin and the PG&E citygate,where the utility declared a systemwide OFO for today (seeTransportation Notes).

Natural gas industry analysts at Deutsche Bank have concludedthat a “structural shift” has occurred in the supply and demandunderlying the gas market, setting the stage for gas prices to holdtheir current ground at more than $2.50 for the next two years.

Gas analysts at Deutsche Bank have come to the conclusion that a”structural shift” has occurred in the supply and demand underlyingthe gas market, setting the stage for gas prices to hold theircurrent ground at more than $2.50 for the next two years.

With power projects cropping up faster than spring dandelions,an alarming disconnect has occurred between generation andtransmission in several regions of the U.S., according to PaulParshley, director of North American Electric Power for CambridgeEnergy Research Associates.

Once again all of the “hot” price action Friday occurred in theNortheast, and that’s because it was downright bone-chilling there.This time it was the turn of Algonquin citygates to occupy the toprung of the pricing ladder as they ran up more than $1.00 into the$4.80s and peaked at $6.50. A large aggregator said she later heardintra-day citygates trading as high as $8. She and another sourcesaid Algonquin was curtailing all IT and 50% of Secondary Firmservice downstream of the Cromwell (CT) Compressor Station Fridayand cutting Secondary Firm to zero past Cromwell for Saturday. Thataffected all deliveries to Boston, Rhode Island and the easternhalf of Connecticut, one said.

An unplanned outage occurred Wednesday at Northern Border’sCompressor Station No. 4. No capacity cuts were necessary, aspokesman said, and the station was functioning normally againThursday.

A direct lightning strike occurred Monday at Transwestern’sBisti Compressor Station (San Juan County, NM), prompting thepipeline to declare a force majeure. Transwestern expected thestation to be down about three days, saying San Juan Lateralcapacity would be reduced to 700,000 MMbtu/d through Thursday.

Investigators believe a recent line break on the NOVA GasTransmission Ltd. (NGTL) system was caused by stress corrosioncracking (SCC). The line break occurred Feb. 7 about 18 miles northof Highway 11 and 45 miles southwest of Drayton Valley. There wereno injuries. The pipeline involved in the line break wasconstructed in 1980. “We will take the data and evidence wegathered at the site and prepare a more detailed analysis toconfirm our preliminary assessment,” said John Walker, vicepresident plant maintenance.

The futures market experienced heavy expiration-day lossesyesterday, adding to price erosion that occurred Tuesday. Novemberwas particularly hard hit, slipping 13.6 cents to settle at $1.972.Weak October cash prices and follow-through selling by traders whohave elected to ignore and discount the threat of Hurricane Mitchwere reasons cited for the decline. Trading was active, with nearly150,000 contracts changing hands.