Storm

The late winter storm that dumped snow Sunday night into Monday morning over much of the Eastern Seaboard was easily trumped by a fresh dose of bleak economic indicators, which helped to push April natural gas futures on Monday to close at $4.152, down 4.6 cents from Friday’s finish.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has “plenty of liquidity” and will be able to weather the economic storm by neutralizing capital expenditures (capex) over the next two years, CEO Aubrey McClendon told investors Monday. Even with flat spending, the Oklahoma City-based natural gas driller expects to achieve 5-10% production growth in 2009 and 10-15% gains in 2010.

Due to Tropical Storm Gustav, Destin Pipeline said effective with the start of Saturday’s gas day it will be unable to provide transportation services from offshore receipt points. This will be a force majeure event, Destin said, adding that its onshore receipt and delivery points will remain in operation.

Canada’s storm-prone center of fossil-fuel production readily accepts the theory that the climate is changing, but highly educated Albertans stop far short of accepting the full global warming gospel even when their anonymity is guaranteed. Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll of the professions reported.

Canada’s storm-prone center of fossil-fuel production readily accepts the theory that the climate is changing, but highly educated Albertans stop far short of accepting the full global warming gospel even when their anonymity is guaranteed. Only about one in three Alberta earth scientists and engineers believe the culprit behind climate change has been identified, a new poll of the professions reported.

Field contractors are braced for a long and deep slump in Canadian natural gas drilling, blaming a perfect storm of glutted markets, unfavorable currency exchange rates and Alberta’s overhaul of government royalties.

Field contractors are braced for a long and deep slump in Canadian natural gas drilling, blaming a perfect storm of glutted markets, unfavorable currency exchange rates and Alberta’s overhaul of government royalties.

Those searching the skies for storm-driven relief for falling natural gas prices should lower their sights and take into account the extensive earthquake damage to a major Japanese nuclear power plant recently. That’s just what FBR Research is doing in predicting Japan’s increased demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to fill its 8,200 MW power gap could cut into supplies for the U.S. market, leading to tightening the domestic natural gas market.

Those searching the skies for storm-driven relief for falling natural gas prices should lower their sights and take into account the extensive earthquake damage to a major Japanese nuclear power plant recently. That’s just what FBR Research is doing in predicting Japan’s increased demand for LNG to fill its 8,200 MW power gap could cut into supplies for the U.S. market, leading to tightening the domestic natural gas market.