Prospects

Brimming with confidence fueled by a strong portfolio of businesses, San Diego-based Sempra Energy is bullish about its prospects in a joint venture to build a major new natural gas pipeline from the Rockies to the East. It also expects to project finance all three of its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals, CEO Neal Schmale told analysts at the Bank of America 2005 Energy Conference in San Diego Tuesday.

Despite a 30% increase in gas-directed drilling in the United States over the last two years, quarterly production statistics from public financial reports show domestic production is still declining, analysts at Raymond James & Associates and UBS said this week. Both found second quarter domestic gas production down 1.2% from levels at the end of the second quarter of 2004 based on separate E&P surveys.

Shell Canada announced that it has acquired 58,000 acres of land in northeastern British Columbia for $85 million, providing exploration and development prospects in the deep basin area. The company said the purchase doubles its holdings of tight sands, or basin-centered, gas resources in Canada, and illustrates the need to focus more on unconventional plays because of maturing conventional resources.

The quality of U.S. natural gas prospects continues to diminish, and organic decline rates continue to rise, which means that the U.S. gas supply picture “remains quite constrained,” according to Raymond James analysts.

The quality of U.S. natural gas prospects continues to diminish, and organic decline rates continue to rise, which means that the U.S. gas supply picture “remains quite constrained,” according to Raymond James analysts.

High natural gas prices have allowed Canadian producers to drill smaller prospects and to target unconventional resources that used to be considered uneconomic, resulting in a reversal of the production declines last year. Analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers is predicting a 1.5% increase in Canadian natural gas production this year, “a vast improvement from the decline of nearly 3.5% experienced in 2003.”

High natural gas prices have allowed Canadian producers to drill smaller prospects and to target unconventional resources that used to be considered uneconomic, resulting in a reversal of the production declines last year. Analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers is predicting a 1.5% increase in Canadian natural gas production this year, “a vast improvement from the decline of nearly 3.5% experienced in 2003.”

High natural gas prices have allowed Canadian producers to drill smaller prospects and to target unconventional resources that used to be considered uneconomic, resulting in a reversal of the production declines last year. Analyst Thomas Driscoll of Lehman Brothers is predicting a 1.5% increase in Canadian natural gas production this year, “a vast improvement from the decline of nearly 3.5% experienced in 2003.”

Industry emerged as a winner from two landmark decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada on a legal gray area, aboriginal relations, which has clouded the future of the Mackenzie Gas Project.