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Envy instead of glee was the dominant mood among Canadian producers as Alberta natural gas failed to take off when international oil prices shot up into the $100-a-barrel-plus stratosphere.

Envy instead of glee was the dominant mood among Canadian producers as Alberta natural gas failed to take off when international oil prices shot up into the $100-a-barrel-plus stratosphere.

January natural gas futures prices shot higher on Wednesday and depending on who you talk to, the move was due to: winter storms coming to the Northeast; Tropical Storm Olga (later downgraded to a tropical depression) curving its path towards the Gulf of Mexico; skyrocketing petroleum prices; or the failure of gas to get below $7. Some market experts cited a mixture of the three for the prompt month contract’s 32.3-cent jump on the day to finish at $7.408.

Last week’s announced closure of the Agrium Inc. fertilizer plant in Kenai due to a shortage of natural gas in the region could be the shot in the arm needed to move an already-pondered “bullet” pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope to bring gas to Cook Inlet, the project’s backer said last week.

The closure of the Agrium Inc. fertilizer plant in Kenai, AK, due to a shortage of natural gas in the region, which was announced this week (see Daily GPI, Sept. 26) could be the shot in the arm needed to move an already-pondered “bullet” pipeline from Alaska’s North Slope to bring gas to Cook Inlet.

October natural gas futures shot 37.4 cents higher Monday to close at $6.653 as the market dealt with another round of short-covering supported by continued crude price strength combined with news that a compressor station outage had cut off deliveries to Cheyenne Plains Gas Pipeline from two major pipes out of the Rockies.

Canadian government leaders promptly shot down the latest report that Ottawa is trying to rescue the stalled Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project by taking over ownership from its sponsoring natural gas producer consortium.

Canadian government leaders promptly shot down the latest report that Ottawa is trying to rescue the stalled Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project by taking over ownership from its sponsoring natural gas producer consortium.

Getting a head start on resuming the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in January, Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) sent a shot across the bow of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission with a letter to Chairman Joseph P. Kelliher saying the committee would be reviewing FERC’s progress in carrying out directives in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct).