Platform

Natural gas cash prices jumped an average 15 cents Monday for Tuesday delivery as a strong screen provided a firm platform for buyers, and utilities commenced with early summer buying. The advance was widespread and nearly every point posted double-digit gains. A handful of locations were up by 20 cents or more.

Most of the candidates who ran for office in New York on a platform opposed to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) were soundly defeated at the polls on Tuesday, but it was unclear if Republicans would maintain control of the state Senate with two races too close to call.

Technology and good old “American ingenuity” that have driven the shale gas boom are also prompting responses to a supply glut that make storage and eventual liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports more important than ever, according to Bryan Durkin, COO at CME Group, who addressed the opening session of the LDC Gas Forums mid-continent meeting in Chicago Monday.

In a story published in April, BP Expanding in GOM Deepwater, the initial gas processing capacity from the Mad Dog field was incorrectly stated (see NGI, April 16). The platform initially was designed to process up to 60 MMcf/d of gas and up to 100,000 b/d of oil. NGI regrets the error.

An equipment failure at a deepwater Gulf of Mexico drilling platform contracted by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc released about 319 barrels of biodegradable drilling mud and water last weekend before being contained, according to a report filed with the National Response Center (NRC).

At the start of Wednesday’s gas day Destin will end a force majeure event and resume normal operations from its Main Pass 260 platform through the onshore Pascagoula Gas Plant in Mississippi (see Daily GPI, Oct. 18). The alternate delivery point to Viosca Knoll Gathering System will no longer be available for transportation services until further notice, Destin said.

More natural gas use for power generation and transportation in the Lone Star State is a plank in the platform of the newly formed Texas Clean Energy Coalition (TCEC), which is being led by former state Sen. Kip Averitt, TCEC chairman, with funding from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation.

The fire that occurred early this month on Mariner Energy Inc.’s offshore production platform won’t impact the drilling moratorium timeline, but how officials respond to the incident will be different than in the past, the chief of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) said last week.

The fire that occurred last week on Mariner Energy Inc.’s offshore production platform won’t impact the drilling moratorium timeline, but how officials respond to the incident will be different than in the past, the chief of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) said Tuesday.