Prompting

Transwestern issued a systemwide Alert Day notice due to low linepack for Monday, prompting Southwest Gas to follow up with a Hold Burn to Scheduled Quantities notice. Both actions were canceled Tuesday as a result of Transwestern linepack returning to normal.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has voluntarily suspended all completion operations in Pennsylvania as response crews work to contain a Chesapeake well blowout in the Marcellus Shale in northeast Pennsylvania.

Demand exceeding capacity has resulted in a linepack loss downstream of Stations 245 and 321, Tennessee said, prompting it to issue Critical Day 1 OFOs for all LMS-PA Balancing Parities in Zones 5 and 6 effective Sunday. The OFOs will be in addition to Action Alerts implemented Friday in those zones along with one in Zone 4, Tennessee said.

Customer concerns have put a planned wood-fueled biomass power plant on hold in Traverse City, MI, prompting Traverse City Light & Power (L&P) to put natural gas at the top of its list to replace an old coal-fired power plant. “We’ve listened to many of our ratepayers tell us they don’t know enough about biomass and some have suggested they are more comfortable with natural gas as a power generation resource, even though natural gas is not a renewable energy,” said L&P Chairman Mike Coco. L&P said its previous goal of achieving 30% of its power from renewable sources by 2020 may fall by the wayside if a gas-fueled option is selected for the replacement power supplies.

June natural gas futures rose Wednesday as traders noted significant short covering prompting higher prices, but should prices advance another 20 cents or more, aggressive selling will appear, they say. June natural gas rose 15.3 cents to $4.284 and July rose 16 cents to $4.385. June crude oil fell 72 cents to $75.65/bbl.

NRG Energy Inc. shareholders last Tuesday reelected all of the company’s director nominees, prompting Exelon Corp. to withdraw its hostile takeover bid for the company as it previously said it would. Shareholders also rejected Exelon’s proposal to expand NRG’s board with its own slate of five director nominees.

Hard-times natural gas prices crumbled an Alberta political pillar by prompting the province’s Conservative government to discard a popular home-heating subsidy, saying it no longer has money to burn.

Hard-times natural gas prices crumbled an Alberta political pillar by prompting the province’s Conservative government to discard a popular home-heating subsidy, saying it no longer has money to burn.

Canadian natural gas exporters have recorded their first revenue gain in more than two years, prompting predictions that a drilling and supply recovery will develop within months. In the long-awaited turn for the better, sharply rising sales volumes more than made up for negative effects on prices and corporate incomes of unfavorable exchange rates, trade records of the National Energy Board (NEB) show.