Permit

FERC has awarded CenterPoint Energy Gas Transmission a certificate to carry out a mainline compression expansion in Oklahoma that would permit greater volumes of Rocky Mountain natural gas to be transported eastward to markets across its pipeline system.

With sustained higher natural gas and oil prices, and with expected permit approval for Powder River Basin exploration — which could lift natural gas and oil production 6-10% this year — MDU Resources Inc. on Tuesday raised its full-year 2005 earnings guidance.

With sustained higher natural gas and oil prices, and with expected permit approval for Powder River Basin exploration — which could lift natural gas and oil production 6-10% this year — MDU Resources Inc. on Tuesday raised its full-year 2005 earnings guidance.

Citing “greatly improved” permit processing by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Western Gas Resources expects to grow its unconventional gas production by between 10-15% this year and 15-20% in 2006, company officials said in an earnings conference call last Thursday. While production, mainly from the Rockies area, was only up 5% in 2004 over 2003, net income increased 42% to a record $119.2 million.

Citing “greatly improved” permit processing by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Western Gas Resources expects to grow its unconventional gas production by between 10-15% this year and 15-20% in 2006, company officials said in an earnings conference call Thursday. While production, mainly from the Rockies area, was only up 5% in 2004 over 2003, net income increased 42% to a record $119.2 million.

Freeport LNG Development LP, which has a FERC permit to build a 1.5 Bcf/d LNG receiving terminal in Quintana, TX, on Tuesday announced plans for a future expansion project and said that it signed a new 17-year terminal use agreement with a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary, MC Global Gas Corp., for a portion of the terminal’s capacity starting in 2009.

Freeport LNG Development LP, which has a FERC permit to build a 1.5 Bcf/d LNG receiving terminal in Quintana, TX, on Tuesday announced plans for a future expansion project and said that it signed a new 17-year terminal use agreement with a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary, MC Global Gas Corp., for a portion of the terminal’s capacity starting in 2009.

AES Ocean Express LLC on Thursday received a presidential permit and authorizations from FERC to build the 54-mile U.S. leg of a pipeline that would transport 842 MMcf/d of gas to southern Florida from a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in the Bahamas.

Interior Secretary Gale Norton had good and bad news for the natural gas industry last Tuesday. She said the department plans to take steps to speed up the permitting process for natural gas producers in the Rocky Mountain region, but she doused any flickering hope that producers might have about being given access to the off-limit regions of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) amid the concerns about gas supply and prices.