Provided

With the dust now settling and the facts coming into clearer focus following the Bank of Montreal’s (BMO) announcement late last month of significant losses on natural gas trades, the fourth largest Canadian bank warned investors Thursday that its initial report of losses from “out-of-the-money options” of between C$350 million and C$450 million (US$313.70 million to US$403.33 million) has been increased to C$680 million (US$623.80 million).

As of Jan. 1, Ohio’s natural gas customers have safeguards and benefits provided by the state’s recently adopted Natural Gas Service Standards. The new standards address service installation, metering, billing and customer service issues in an effort to ensure fair and reliable service.

Beginning Jan. 1, Ohio’s natural gas customers will have safeguards and benefits provided by the state’s recently adopted Natural Gas Service Standards. The new standards address service installation, metering, billing and customer service issues in an effort to ensure fair and reliable service.

MRT lifted Monday the System Protection Warning that it had implemented Saturday.

The colder weather provided some much needed relief to a packed pipeline and storage system last week, but also sent spot prices soaring more than $2.50/MMBtu at the Henry Hub to the high $6.80s on Friday from about $4.30 a week earlier. During a Commission meeting last week, FERC staff said there has been no concrete evidence of large-scale production shut-ins due to the lack of storage space, but market observers had difficulty explaining how prices could climb so sharply with storage exceeding 100% full at a number of fields.

The emerging next generation of Alberta oilsands projects has provided an early example of how new technology will make oilsands a contributor to natural gas supplies rather than just a drain. About 22 Bcf/year of gas will eventually be put back on the market as a result of an agreement between fertilizer manufacturer Agrium Inc. and the 100,000 bbl/d Northern Lights oilsands project.

Two former natural gas traders allegedly provided false information to publishers in an effort to manipulate industry price indexes, but the federal government is finding difficult to prove that their efforts were successful, according to testimony last week in Houston in the federal trial of former gas traders Michelle Valencia and Greg Singleton.

President Bush signaled Wednesday that he is open to some of the offshore drilling proposals floating around on Capitol Hill provided they do not allow drilling closer than 100 miles to shore.

Scorching southern heat, northwestern cold and mild temperatures in the Midwest and Northeast provided a wide variety of weather fundamentals for the cash market Tuesday, but prices climbed up another 20-50 cents largely in response to continued futures market gains, in particular a new all-time high for near-month crude oil futures.