Temporarily

April natural gas futures slipped a little lower temporarily in morning trade immediately after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported Thursday that only 55 Bcf was removed from underground storage for the week ended March 10. However, the prompt month came roaring back in the afternoon, recording a high of $7.370 before settling at $7.267, up 12.4 cents.

Responding to a motion from the California parties, FERC Thursday agreed to temporarily suspend its procedural schedule established in an interim guidance order it released last week. The federal regulatory process will wait for a ruling from a federal district court in New York City that has scheduled a hearing for Jan. 26 on the issue of Calpine Corp.’s bankruptcy court request to set aside eight of its power supply contracts because they are unprofitable for the Chapter 11-protected company.

Hurricane Ivan so far has knocked out more than 55.5 Bcf of natural gas because of production shut-ins in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), and may have at least temporarily reversed what had been a very negative price momentum in the gas market between mid-August and September, according to the latest statistics from the Minerals Management Service (MMS).

Stopping the rally from last week at least temporarily, August natural gas futures on its way towards expiration dropped 17.7 cents on Monday to close at $5.957. The drop almost erased last Thursday’s 22.1-cent rally, which was sparked by the first bullish natural gas storage report in many weeks (see Daily GPI, July 23).

Transocean Inc. said Friday that a problem encountered with a drill rig has temporarily suspended drilling operations for BP on the BP-operated Thunder Horse field at Mississippi Canyon block 822 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Alcoa Inc. has agreed to temporarily shut down an energy-intensive aluminum smelter to help ease the growing power crunch in the Pacific Northwest region.

At least temporarily, the slide in May swing prices came to an end for much of the cash market Thursday. Rockies/San Juan/Pacific Northwest and non-Malin California numbers remained on the downhill path, but eastern and Southwest basin prices generally ranged from flat to a dime or so higher. Most eastern points, though, were only barely above flat.

Unplanned maintenance at the SOE (Sable Offshore Energy) GasPlant has caused physical supply into Maritimes & Northeast todecrease temporarily, the pipeline said. Due to this, shippers areexpected to match physical volumes to nominated receipts, it added.However, the reduced throughputs have allowed M&N to lift ITrestrictions at the Baileyville (ME) Compressor Station.

A threatened shut-in of 250 MMcf/d or more of deep-water gasproduction connected to Southern Natural Gas Co.’s system wasaverted — at least temporarily — as the owners of keyprocessing facilities in Louisiana last Thursday re-started some oftheir operations to satisfy the long-line pipeline, which claimedthe production fell short of its specifications for delivery. Theproducers, however, said their gas more than met Southern Natural’squality specs, and that they were being unfairly held to a higherstandard than other shippers on the pipeline’s system.