Slowed

A Louisiana government official’s statement that the state will see a decrease in tax revenues in coming years due to natural gas drillers moving their operations from taxable areas in South Louisiana to tax-exempt fields in North Louisiana “could not be further from the truth,” according to Louisiana Oil & Gas Association (LOGA) President Don Briggs.

While customer growth has slowed with the economic downturn during the past 18 months, credit and finances for natural gas distribution companies look strong, according to a report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) released earlier in January. The rating agency expects supportive regulatory decisions and continued access to capital market for the gas utility industry, the report said.

While customer growth has slowed with the economic downturn during the past 18 months, credit and finances for natural gas distribution companies look strong, according to a report by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P). The rating agency expects supportive regulatory decisions and continued access to capital market for the gas utility industry, the report said.

With a modest (but expected to be brief) respite from harsh cold creeping into the forecasts for some areas, price advances slowed considerably at most points Tuesday and the formerly ultra-strong Northeast market was in wide retreat, with a few citygates seeing dollar-plus losses.

The softening trend of cash prices appeared to have slowed to a near-standstill Tuesday as most losses were in single digits that day and were nearly offset by flat to higher locations. However, larger drops extended to a majority of points on the following day, and the downhill momentum got even steeper Thursday as mostly large declines (all in double digits) swept through the entire market.

While there are still signs of a slowed economy, for the most part major natural gas infrastructure projects in the West are still on target, albeit on a slightly smaller scale or delayed timetable, according to comments last week from executives for El Paso Natural Gas and Kern River Gas Transmission Co.

While there are still signs of a slowed economy, for the most part major natural gas infrastructure projects in the West are still on target, albeit on a slightly smaller scale or delayed timetable, according to a panel of project representatives who spoke Tuesday at the LDC Gas Forum: West & Rockies conference in Irvine, CA.

While drilling has slowed in the Uintah Basin in Utah, Wyoming Interstate Co. Ltd.’s (WIC) pipeline says there still is a need for takeaway capacity from the region and has filed an application at FERC for a compression expansion on its Kanda Lateral.

With imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States having slowed substantially, the economic meltdown resetting global gas demand to lower levels — at least for the time being — and development costs still high, one might wish to have their days of LNG investment behind them. Not so, said Chevron’s Patrick Blough, vice president of gas commercialization.