Possibility

Northwest cautioned shippers of the possibility of a deficiency day being declared during the upcoming four-day shutdown of the Clay Basin storage facility. Along with work scheduled by Clay Basin operator Questar, Northwest will be installing a new separator at its Clay Basin interconnect Wednesday and Thursday. Upon completion of the installation, Questar will perform a meter calibration beginning Friday and lasting through Saturday. There will also be no physical injections or withdrawals during all four days. “Due to the length of the combined outages, it is unlikely that Northwest will be able to mitigate any impacts to customer nominations,” the pipeline said. “Therefore, Clay Basin injection and withdrawal nominations must net to zero at the end of every cycle for gas days April 27 and 28. If primary nominations exceed a net of zero, a deficiency day will be declared and nominations will be cut accordingly.” Clay Basin is expected to return to full design capacity for Sunday’s gas day.

Acknowledging the possibility that a new oil and gas pricing environment could be in the offing, ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva, nevertheless, is betting that current high prices probably are not sustainable. Mulva said the company has decided not to increase its current $6.2 billion a year exploration and production budget.

Acknowledging the possibility that a new oil and gas pricing environment could be in the offing, ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva, nevertheless, is betting that current high prices probably are not sustainable. Mulva said the company has decided not to increase its current $6.2 billion a year exploration and production budget.

After having warned of the possibility a day earlier, Florida Gas Transmission issued an Overage Alert Day notice Wednesday for its market area with 20% tolerance for negative daily imbalances. Market-area linepack was lower at the same time demand there was increasing, FGT said.

The possibility of blackouts Friday in New England because of lost gas-fired power generation and record demand prompted calls for legislative action by some Congressmen and Senators. But New England’s grid operator managed to keep the lights on, and the gas industry maintained firm deliveries during the bone-chilling cold that led to gas demand and spot price records.

While raising a possibility that the dormant Deep Panuke project will be revived offshore of Nova Scotia, Canada’s top natural gas producer has made it plain its priorities are out West and on safer bets.

While raising a possibility that the dormant Deep Panuke project will be revived offshore of Nova Scotia, Canada’s top natural gas producer has made it plain its priorities are out West and on safer bets.

Although gas prices are nearly $2/MMBtu lower than they were in early June and show no signs of substantially reversing course, ever-bullish analysts at Raymond James & Associates devoted their “Stat of the Week” outlook to making a case for a significant rebound in the August natural gas market. Others experts, however, aren’t buying it.

A 15.5-cent pop higher in August gas futures Monday left some analysts and brokers considering the possibility that the market has found a summertime bottom due to recent higher temperatures, expectations of smaller storage injections and the likelihood of Atlantic hurricanes. But most observers said they aren’t willing to write off the downtrend just yet. The August contract ended the day at $5.381.