storage

For the week ended Dec. 6 the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average nationally rose 18 cents to $4.11. The strongest gains were posted in the Rocky Mountains and California with the Rockies adding a stout 75 cents to $4.58 and California quotes gaining 42 cents to $4.38.

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.

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 prices for weekend and Monday delivery on average vaulted another 62 cents in Friday’s trading. Gains were made at all but a couple of Marcellus points and were deep into double digits.

Freeport LNGnamed Sigmund “Sig” Cornelius successor to Charles Reimer as president and COO effective April 1, 2014. Cornelius is the retired senior vice president of finance and CFO of ConocoPhillips, where he had a 30-year career that included more than 14 years of operational profit and loss responsibilities covering domestic and international exploration and production operations and natural gas processing divisions. Reimer will remain a member of the Freeport board and will stay on as adviser to the company for at least four years after the final investment decision is made in Freeport LNG Expansion’s planned Train 3, which is expected by the end of 2014.

Physical natural gas prices for delivery Friday continued their rocket-like trajectory in Thursday’s trading, adding a stout 18 cents on average.

Unitil Corp. is partnering with Portwalk Place, a mixed-use development in Portsmouth, NH, to upgrade the natural gas infrastructure in the downtown area at no cost to taxpayers. Unitil is replacing older steel pipes in the surrounding area with high-density plastic pipe. The project will modernize a portion of Portsmouth’s gas infrastructure, making it more reliable, efficient and better able to meet the growing demand for natural gas, Unitil said. The company has laid more than 2,500 feet of plastic pipe in and around the downtown area, allowing the natural gas system to operate at an elevated, more consistent pressure similar to other areas of the city. Unitil is implementing a global positioning system for all new pipe laid in the ground that will provide the company access to a database of infrastructure information. Unitil is a public utility holding company with operations in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Louisiana may be losing millions of dollars in revenue because of an inadequate system for collecting oil and gas severance taxes, according to an audit by a state official.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) Tuesday said it plans to hold an oil and natural gas lease sale in March for portions of the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the first sale to be held in the offshore area in five years.