Returned

Mixed price movement returned to the market Friday following losses at virtually all points a day earlier, but mostly moderate softness stayed highly dominant.

Mixed price movement returned to the market Friday following losses at virtually all points a day earlier, but mostly moderate softness stayed highly dominant.

Mixed price movement returned to the cash market Friday as several points, mostly in the West and Northeast, saw drops ranging from a couple of pennies to a little more than a nickel. But most points continued to record small gains that again depended on a prior-day futures increase and continued to defy modest weather-based load in most areas.

Williams Partners LP announced that the Ignacio gas processing plant had been repaired and returned to service Friday after being shut down due to a pipeline rupture on June 3.

Privately backed producer Indigo Minerals LLC has returned to the acquisition market after making a $218 million cash deal with Chesapeake Energy Corp. to acquire some producing properties, undeveloped acreage and midstream assets spread across northern Louisiana, East Texas and Arkansas. Under the agreement, Indigo would acquire stakes in 519 of Chesapeake’s producing wells that are located in more than 60 fields. The transaction also includes 40,000 undeveloped acres, bringing the total acreage position to be sold to Indigo to more than 122,000 net acres. Indigo would operate 219 of the newly acquired wells, and it would gain a working interest in another 300 of the Chesapeake-operated wells in the region. Net production following the acquisition “will approach 40 MMcfe/d, and total proved reserves will exceed 220 Bcfe,” said Indigo, which is based in Houston. Chesapeake would retain its deep leasehold rights in the Haynesville Shale properties, Indigo said. The acquisition follows a divestment phase by Indigo that began in 2008, when the company sold 89,000 acres of mineral rights in the Haynesville Shale to EnCana Corp. for $457 million (see NGI, June 30, 2008).

Privately backed producer Indigo Minerals LLC has returned to the acquisition market after making a $218 million cash deal with Chesapeake Energy Corp. to acquire some producing properties, undeveloped acreage and midstream assets spread across northern Louisiana, East Texas and Arkansas.

Texas Eastern said an unplanned outage at its Five Points (OH) Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, May 15) has been resolved and the station was returned to normal operation Friday. All restrictions on its 24-inch diameter system in the area were removed.

Although a few points returned to the “plus” column Monday after Friday’s across the board declines, prices continued to drop in most of the cash market as typical shoulder-month weather and the previous Friday’s 31.6-cent plunge by the expiring April futures contract depressed physical quotes.

With phase one of its storage project still not completed, Pine Prairie Energy Center LLC has returned to FERC asking to double the working gas capacity of its storage project near the Henry Hub in Louisiana to 48 Bcf. At the same time Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service (S&P) has lowered the company’s credit rating because of delays and cost overruns on the initial project.