Puts

A burst of drilling, described as nothing short of heroic by regional standards, has arrested the two-year-old decline in Canadian natural gas supplies at least for now. Production grew by 2% during the first third of this year to about 17.3 Bcf/d compared to 17 Bcf/d from January through April of 2003, according to records kept by Statistics Canada.

A burst of drilling, described as nothing short of heroic by regional standards, has arrested the two-year-old decline in Canadian natural gas supplies at least for now. Production grew by 2% during the first third of this year to about 17.3 Bcf/d compared to 17 Bcf/d from January through April of 2003, according to records kept by Statistics Canada.

Results from a FERC staff survey sent to energy companies in March show that industry’s confidence in and use of published natural gas price indexes are relatively high, but the level of participation by companies reporting information about their gas trades to publishers’ price surveys still is an open question.

Despite the fact that trading volumes remained light due to Passover and upcoming Good Friday, May natural gas futures shimmied up 6.3 cents to close at $5.872, halting a two-day stretch during which the daily changes were less than a penny.

Saltville Gas Storage Co. LLC, a joint venture of NUI Corp. and Duke Energy Gas Transmission, is holding a 30-day open season to test market interest in about 1 Bcf of firm gas storage capacity that is being developed at the companies’ new storage facility in Saltville, VA.

Saltville Gas Storage Co. LLC, a joint venture of NUI Corp. and Duke Energy Gas Transmission, is holding a 30-day open season to test market interest in about 1 Bcf of firm gas storage capacity that is being developed at the companies’ new storage facility in Saltville, VA.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) within the next month and a half intends to complete a written policy that will allow the council to hand over to FERC information related to power reliability violations, the head of NERC told a Senate hearing last week.

Capping off almost two weeks of work, TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. finished repairs on the second rupture point on its Nova system Thursday morning and put the stretch of pipe back into service. The company fixed the #1 rupture on Saturday, Dec. 6.

Bullied by a surprisingly strong blast of winter weather, the natural gas futures market turned abruptly higher Monday as waves of fund and local short covering entered the trading pit. A stronger open set the tone and by 12:30 p.m. EST the January contract had carved out a new six-week continuation-chart high at $5.38.