Pressures

While the troubles that have swept across global financial markets have added new pressures to the natural gas trading arena, some of the market reformation measures that followed the implosion of Enron and other large marketers in 2001 have enabled the natural gas market to withstand major disruptions and continue on a relatively smooth course.

Saying it was to insure that operating pressures do not increase to unacceptable levels, Sea Robin Pipeline issued an OFO, effective Saturday until further notice, for all offshore receipt points. “Shippers are required to verify receipt point nominations and flow rates with their proposed receipt point operator prior to nomination on Sea Robin, as well as maintain balanced receipt and delivery nominations,” Sea Robin said. It also noted that the Hess Corp.-operated Sea Robin Gas Processing Plant was expected to remain shut in through Sunday and that Hess will provide an update on operations Monday morning.

In the long term North America will be the dominant liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions control will increase demand and price pressures on gas, and end-use customers for both electricity and natural gas utilities will face ever-larger rate increases, a panel of U.S. utility executives said last Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Eighth Annual Power and Utility Conference in New York City.

In the long term North America will be the dominant liquefied natural gas (LNG) market, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions control will increase demand and price pressures on gas, ultimately end-use customers for both electricity and natural gas utilities will face ever-larger rate increases, a panel of major U.S. utility executives said Tuesday at the Goldman Sachs Eighth Annual Power and Utility Conference in New York City.

Transco reported that “insufficient receipts to meet delivery obligations on the Mobile Bay Lateral have resulted in significant imbalance and pressures that do not support normal operations on the lateral.” These “significant operational difficulties” mean that the pipeline may be required to issue an OFO for Zones 4A and 4B, Transco said. It urged customers to resolve existing due-pipeline imbalances or Operational Balance Agreement party imbalances.

With negative pressures continuing to bear down on the market, cash prices finally succumbed Friday by posting sizeable losses at all points. Cooling load would be growing even scarcer over the weekend, the screen had dropped more than a quarter the day before, bearish storage signals were surfacing again, and the industrial load decline over a weekend came into play.

Despite the deluge of financial and legal pressures clouding Calpine Corp.’s future, the nation’s largest merchant electric generation plant operator is still actively pursuing the development of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in Oregon at the mouth of the Columbia River along the Pacific Coast, according to a Calpine spokesperson who was interviewed Monday by Daily GPI.

With conventional natural gas supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and other traditional U.S. basins drying up and widespread liquefied natural gas (LNG) access still a question mark, the GOM ultra-deep shelf play is the wild card that could help to pick up some of the slack in domestic supplies, according to Matthew Anstead, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie.

With conventional natural gas supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and other traditional U.S. basins drying up and widespread liquefied natural gas (LNG) access still a question mark, the GOM ultra-deep shelf play is the wild card that could help to pick up some of the slack in domestic supplies, according to Matthew Anstead, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie.