Season

Colorado Interstate Gas has announced an open season running through July 20 for a new pipeline to transport Rocky Mountain gas from the Cheyenne Hub to connections in the Midcontinent area near Greensburg, KS.

Williams Gas Pipeline Central is holding a binding open season through June 29 for 540,000 Dth/d of firm capacity on its proposed Western Frontier Pipeline Project. The project would provide a new transportation corridor from the Cheyenne Hub in northern Colorado to market points and connections with other Midcontinent pipelines in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Williams Gas Pipeline Central is holding a binding open season through June 29 for 540,000 Dth/d of firm capacity on its proposed Western Frontier Pipeline Project. The project would provide a new transportation corridor from the Cheyenne Hub in northern Colorado to market points and connections with other Midcontinent pipelines in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Buoyed by the first truly bullish weather report of the season, natural gas futures ambled higher Friday as speculative traders covered their shorts ahead of the weekend. Closing at $3.922, the July contract was 13.2 cents higher on the day, but 8.7 cents lower on the week. Estimated volume was light with only 55,639 contracts changing hands.

Williams is holding an open season to gather market interest in capacity on its proposed Gray’s Harbor Lateral in Thurston County, WA. The lateral, which would extend off of Northwest Pipeline’s mainline near Vail, is being designed primarily to serve a new electric generation plant in the Sarsop Development park near Elma, WA. The first 36 miles of the 48-mile line will parallel Northwest’s existing Olympia and McCleary laterals. So far, the plant operator has signed an agreement for 161,500 Dth/d of firm capacity on the lateral, which is scheduled to be in service in November 2002. Northwest expects to charge its minimum rate plus an estimated surcharge of 29 cents/Dth for the facility cost of service. Williams said it is seeking 15-year contracts. For more information call Patrick Aman at (801) 584-6322. Precedent agreements must be submitted by April 20. Williams said if its anchor shipper backs out of the deal, it will cancel the project and all service agreements will be terminated.

Williams is holding an open season to gather market interest in capacity on its proposed Gray’s Harbor Lateral in Thurston County, WA. The lateral, which would extend off of Northwest Pipeline’s mainline near Vail, is being designed primarily to serve a new electric generation plant in the Sarsop Development park near Elma, WA. The first 36 miles of the 48-mile line will parallel Northwest’s existing Olympia and McCleary laterals.

With a winter season peak demand of less than 30,000 MW,California nonetheless Monday instituted rolling blackouts of 1,000MW across nearly the entire state shortly after Noon PST. TheCal-ISO said the system was down 14,000 MW of capacity due toplanned maintenance, a generator accident, lower imports and somepower loss from qualifying facility (QF) cogeneration plants.

Salomon Smith Barney (SSB) said its latest storage forecast hasthe winter heating season ending with 650-700 MMcf/d of gas instorage. The American Gas Association reported that there was 786Bcf of working gas left as of March 2 and storage levels were 375Bcf lower than one year earlier. Temperatures are projected to beabout 5% colder-than-normal this week and normal to slightly belownormal, on average, during the rest of March, SSB noted. “Thus,conservatively assuming 4-5 Bcf/d of lost demand due to fuelswitching and other factors and normal to 5% colder-than-normaltemperatures during the last three weeks of March, than storagelevels should exit winter at roughly 650-700 Bcf compared to 1,000Bcf last year.” SSB added that demand is starting to return to themarket as gas prices have dropped considerably. “[M]ost of theidled North American ammonia plants have now restarted given thesignificant increase in ammonia producer’s margin, or the spreadbetween ammonia prices and the implicit natural gas costs. SalomonSmith Barney said it believes its $5/Mcf composite spot priceforecast for 2001 “could prove to be conservative based on ourassumptions regarding production growth and U.S. economic growth.The bottom line is that, incorporating numerous other variables, ifdomestic production grows 3% this year and GDP growth is 1.25%,then storage levels are likely to approach or slightly exceed thenearly 2,800 Bcf levels attained at the beginning of November lastyear. If domestic production growth is much less than 3.0% thisyear, as several E&P companies are claiming will be the case(although interestingly not for themselves), then we would verylikely confront an even tighter supply/demand balance for naturalgas throughout this year compared with 2000.”

Another Canadian takeover bid by Hunt Oil and a snap decisionduring the holiday season by the National Energy Board, highlightthe industry’s eagerness to take advantage of soaring gas marketswith new Canadian supplies.