Spring

Texas Gas Transmission LLC plans to file an application with FERC this spring to begin a $36 million storage expansion project at its Midland, KY field. The expansion, by 100,000 MMBtu on a daily basis and 9.3 TBtu on a seasonal basis, comes just three months after the company placed in service an 8.2 TBtu storage expansion at the Midland field (see Daily GPI, Nov. 20, 2005).

With a revamped business model designed to focus on natural gas processing, Oneok Inc. officially exited the power business Friday with the sale of its Spring Creek plant in Logan County, OK to Westar Energy Inc. for $53 million. The transaction will result in a 3Q loss in discontinued operations, but improved gas processing spreads and higher commodity prices will push Oneok’s quarterly income and earnings well ahead of forecasts, the company said Friday.

Calgary-based Canadian Superior said Monday that unusually warm weather in February and March, which resulted in a premature spring breakup, led to a “slight, temporary decline” of 7% in oil and natural gas production during the first quarter.

Spring-like cool temperatures could extend through July for a majority of the northern U.S., according to WSI Corp., an Andover, MA-based provider of weather-driven business solutions,

Spring-like cool temperatures could extend through July for a majority of the northern U.S., according to WSI Corp., an Andover, MA-based provider of weather-driven business solutions,

With cooler weather in the process of replacing the mid-spring heat surge that had allowed prices to ride increased power generation load to higher levels in most cases during the first three days of the week, it was hardly surprising when quotes fell across the board Thursday.

As some early spring storms were hitting the parched Pacific Northwest, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) last week released its official summer electrical assessment, predicting sufficient supplies unless a 1-in-10-year excessive heat situation is encountered, and then the areas in the southern half of the state could turn up about 2,000 MW short in peak-demand situations. In addition to the vulnerability to an extreme hot spell, the southern parts of the state have less tolerance for a string of unplanned plant outages.

Despite weather conditions more resembling mid-winter than nearly spring being due to persist into the weekend in the Northeast and much of the Midwest, this week’s three-day price climb reversed direction Thursday. Northeast citygates, which had led the trek higher earlier in the week, saw the biggest drops of up to nearly 80 cents Thursday. Elsewhere, a couple of flat points crept their way into overall declines ranging from about a nickel to a quarter.

Officials at FERC’s Office of Market Oversight and Investigation (OMOI) said last week they found no evidence that Dominion employees had prior knowledge of the erroneous storage data that a Dominion “clerk” mistakenly submitted to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) last November.