Shifting

With forecasts shifting over the weekend to indicate that cold weather in the East this week will not be as bad as what had been anticipated last week, prices were flat to about a quarter lower in most market areas Monday. However, a few small to moderate gains were mixed into the overall softness, and the Northeast was still getting enough heating load to record strong upticks that reached as high as about 70 cents at Iroquois Zone 2.

NOVA restored its imbalance tolerance range to the normal +4/-4 Tuesday, a day after shifting it to 0/-4 to discourage rising linepack.

North American exploration and production spending in 2003 will be more focused, shifting mostly toward Canadian and deep-shelf Gulf of Mexico (GOM) natural gas plays where there are “significant” opportunities to replenish U.S. gas supplies, according to a report by RBC Capital Markets analysts.

After shifting higher and lower in the first 30 minutes of trading Wednesday, natural gas futures were nearly unchanged at the close following the announcement that 112 Bcf was pulled from underground storage facilities last week. March settled at $2.385, down 1.2 cents for the day, but still well-within striking distance of its 6-week high notched yesterday at $2.43.

Despite record results in drilling and earnings in the quarter just completed, Seneca Resources, the E&P subsidiary of National Fuel Gas (NFG), is changing its strategy over the next several years, gradually decreasing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and “moving our drilling dollars to California, Canada and Appalachia,” Seneca President James A. Beck said.

Despite record results in drilling and earnings in the quarter just completed, Seneca Resources, the E&P subsidiary of National Fuel Gas (NFG), is changing its strategy over the next several years, gradually decreasing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and “moving our drilling dollars to California, Canada and Appalachia,” Seneca President James A. Beck said.

Governors of nine western states announced last week an emergency energy conservation strategy to avert a California-type energy crisis and to mitigate future higher energy prices.

With focus shifting to natural gas prices and supplyavailability this fall and winter, a proposed conversion of the old16-inch-diameter Four Corners oil pipeline to natural gas has runinto a stalemate over a Southern California Gas Co. tariff thatallegedly inhibits the new pipeline from signing up industrialloads in the southern half of the state.

With focus shifting to natural gas prices and supplyavailability this fall and winter, a proposed conversion of the old16-inch-diameter Four Corners oil pipeline to natural gas has runinto a stalemate over a Southern California Gas Co. tariff thatallegedly inhibits the new pipeline from signing up industrialloads in the southern half of the state.