Really

While there are a number of options, including electric power for light-duty vehicles, there is really only one viable option to replacing diesel fuel in heavy-duty fleet vehicles such as buses, trucks and construction equipment, and that is natural gas, Rich Kolodziej, president of NGVAmerica, told Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI).

The 2009 natural gas price outlook is “still very ugly” and given the current over supply, even a colder-than-normal winter is unlikely to prevent a gas price collapse in 2009, Raymond James & Associates Inc. said Monday.

In a move that was largely anticipated ever since electronic commodity trading began to really take off back in 2000, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) announced plans last week outlining when and how a commodity contract will make the “shift” from open outcry trading over to full electronic trading.

In a move that was largely anticipated ever since electronic commodity trading began to really take off back in 2000, the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) announced plans this week outlining when and how a commodity contract will make the “shift” from open outcry trading over to full electronic trading.

Prices declined across the board again Thursday, but things could get really ugly Friday after the Energy Information Administration reported a heavily bearish storage injection of 108 Bcf for the week ending Sept. 8. The announcement induced a plunge of 55.7 cents by October futures, causing the prompt-month contract to explore sub-$5 territory for the first time in two years (see futures story).

A tropical storm now forming in the Atlantic Basin is “a storm with the potential we are really looking out for,” a Wood Mackenzie energy analyst said Wednesday. If the developing storm becomes the next hurricane, to be named Ernesto, “it has a much more favorable pathway to affect Gulf of Mexico (GOM) production” and “could turn into a threat by the end of this week potentially,” said Eugene Kim, Wood Mac’s senior analyst for North American natural gas research.

In the next 30-45 days large consumers may have the opportunity “to lock in some really low gas prices,” according to Chesapeake Energy Chairman Aubrey K. McClendon, adding that his company is “virtually 100% hedged” during that time period.

As Ontario approaches the one-year anniversary of a significant blackout that hit the province and large swaths of the United States and eastern Canada on Aug. 14, 2003, the province appears less at risk now for experiencing a similar type of outage, said David McFadden, who represents Canada in the electric system working group for the Canada-U.S. joint task force that has been examining last year’s historic blackout.

Bullied by the one-two combination of cooler weather forecasts and speculative fund buying, the natural gas futures market accelerated higher Tuesday in a session marked by light activity and choppy trading action.