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Fueled by the coldest air yet this heating season and cajoled by supportive futures prices, cash prices in the Northeast continued their meteoric rise Wednesday, stair-stepping higher in dollar increments as traders scrambled for molecules amid heavy heating demand. Meanwhile, temperatures across the rest of the nation moderated, albeit slightly, from last week’s frigid cold, and prices eased accordingly. In futures trading, January tacked on an even dime to close Wednesday at $4.337 and February followed suit to settle at $4.331. January crude oil dropped $1.07 to $97.44/bbl.

Harold M. Korellis retiring as chairman of Southwestern Energy Co.’s board of directors at the company’s 2014 stockholder meeting. The board at that time intends to elect current CEO and president Steven L. Mueller as chairman. Mueller would continue as CEO. Korell has been with Southwestern for 17 years, including a decade as CEO and most recently as nonexecutive chairman.

Nearly nine months after he was appointed to serve as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Christopher Abruzzo has been appointed by the state senate 42-8. In March Republican Gov. Tom Corbett appointed Abruzzo, who was supposed to take the helm of the oil and gas regulatory agency in April, but some Democrats were angered by the appointment of a longtime government attorney who didn’t appear to share some of their environmental views. Most recently, Abruzzo served as deputy chief of staff for Corbett.

Because “…demand for and the prices being paid for natural gas storage services in the Gulf Coast region have declined substantially, particularly over the past year,” Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC has asked FERC for authorization to abandon up to 22.9 Bcf of working capacity at its three-cavern facility in Texas.

Physical natural gas for delivery Wednesday retreated around a dime on average with declines in the Midcontinent, Rockies and California more than offsetting gains at eastern points.

FERC will prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project of CE FLNG LLC, an affiliate of Cambridge Energy Holding LLC, which plans to construct and operate two floating natural gas liquefaction, storage and offloading units on the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, LA, as well as an associated 37-mile natural gas pipeline (see Daily GPI,April 19). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opened a scoping period for the EIS that is scheduled to end Jan. 6 [PF13-11-000]. CE FLNG plans to moor two self-propelled liquefaction, storage and offloading vessels at the terminal that would each be about 1,100 feet long and 180 feet wide, rising about 80 feet above the waterline. The vessels would be capable of producing up to 8 million tonnes per annum of LNG and storing 250,000 cubic meters of LNG. The project has been approved for free trade agreement (FTA) country exports; approval to export to non-FTA countries is pending at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Physical natural gas for delivery Tuesday soared 66 cents on average in trading Monday as the Arctic chill continued. Blizzard-like weather maintained a stranglehold on key eastern and Midwest energy markets.

January natural gas is expected to open 7 cents higher Monday morning at $4.19 as traders turn their attention to forecasts calling for cold weather to impact Northeast and eastern markets. Overnight oil markets eased.

Bluegrass Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP, extended its binding open season through Jan. 17 to give prospective shippers more time to evaluate the pipeline project and its market outlet options, Bluegrass said. The project would provide natural gas liquids (NGL) transportation capacity from the Marcellus and Utica shales to the petrochemical and export complex on the U.S. Gulf Coast (see Shale Daily,March 7). The open season began Oct. 29. Bluegrass is in a horse race with a competing Marcellus-Gulf Coast NGL pipeline project proposed by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP and MarkWest Utica EMG LLC (see Shale Daily,Oct. 17). For documents or information, contact Joe Edgeller with Williams at (918) 573-9917, joe.edgeller@williams.com; or Beth Medlin with Boardwalk at (713) 479-8118, beth.medlin@bwpmlp.com.