Rights

Two of the biggest independent exploration and production companies in North America — Marathon Oil Corp. and Encana Corp. — last week tapped former Big Oil executives to helm their operations.

Oneok Inc.’s energy services segment, which markets and contracts to provide natural gas and transportation, has “contributed greatly” to the company’s past, but it’s no longer a good fit with today’s marketplace, CEO John Gibson said in a conference call last week.

Constitution Pipeline Co. LLC has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for approval to build a pipeline to carry natural gas from northern Pennsylvania to Northeast markets, and Iroquois Gas Transmission has filed an application to build a key interconnect project. Constitution, owned by subsidiaries of Williams Partners LP, Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., Piedmont Natural Gas Co. and WGL Holdings, expects to complete the122-mile pipeline by spring 2015 (see NGI, June 3). The 30-inch diameter gas line initially would carry up to 650,000 Dth/d from Susquehanna County, PA, interconnecting with the Iroquois and Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) systems in Schoharie County, NY. Constitution reached an agreement with Iroquois to expand the Wright compressor station to eliminate the need for a 32,0000 hp compressor facility in Schoharie County, NY (see NGI, Jan. 21). Iroquois requested that FERC issue its certificate by May 1, 2014 to meet an in-service date of March 31, 2015.

The natural gas cash market on average slipped by a penny in Wednesday’s trading, with many points trading within just a few pennies of unchanged. Great Lakes locations were flat to a couple of pennies lower, and the Gulf mostly registered losses of 2-3 cents. California prices were squarely in the red. At the close of futures trading, July had added 5.3 cents to $3.777 and August was up by 5.4 cents to $3.797. July crude oil added a half buck to $95.88/bbl.

Oneok Inc.’s energy services segment, which markets and contracts to provide natural gas and transportation, has “contributed greatly” to the company’s past, but it’s no longer a good fit with today’s marketplace, CEO John Gibson said in a conference call Tuesday.

BP plc’s annual benchmark review of world energy sees continued growth in global natural gas resources, particularly in the United States, while oil lost worldwide market share for the 13th year in a row.

Shares of Spectra Energy Corp. (SE) spiked Wednesday the day after the company said it would drop down all of its remaining U.S. transmission and storage assets to Spectra Energy Partners (SEP) by the end of the year. Analysts joined investors in cheering the move and raised their ratings on SE shares to “buy.”

A coalition of five energy associations Friday urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) not to lower the $8 billion de minimis threshold of swap dealing activity that a market participant can engage in before it is required to register with the CFTC as a “swap dealer” and become subject to the new Dodd-Frank rules.

A marginal increase in natural gas sales by BP plc and significant increases by Tenaska, Chevron and J.Aron & Co. were overshadowed by declines at ConocoPhillips, Shell Energy NA and Macquarie, resulting in a 5% (7.53 Bcf/d) overall decline in gas sales transactions in 1Q2013 compared with 1Q2012, according to NGI’s 1Q2013 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking.