Traditional

Reversing their traditional adversarial roles, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and The Utility Reform Network (TURN) utility watchdog group announced Thursday they are cooperating on a winter bill mitigation program in the face of skyrocketing wholesale natural gas prices in the aftermath of the recent violent hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. The utility announced two major new initiatives it has developed in conjunction with TURN.

The good news for growing U.S. natural gas demand is that declining traditional reserves can be replaced by a combination of Rocky Mountain unconventional supplies and increased imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), but the bad news is the fact that permitting for new supply projects in these two sectors may be difficult to obtain, a panel of energy lawyers told an industry conference Thursday in Santa Fe, NM. Ultimately, Uncle Sam or neighboring Mexico could hold the keys to unlocking these supplies.

Urging market participants to move beyond the traditional risk management tools when trading natural gas futures, Tom Saal, of Commercial Brokerage Corp., said Wednesday that it is important to develop new techniques for identifying price trends and market timing. One pretty good way of identifying a “buy” signal recently has been simply observing how short the funds, or noncommercial traders, are.

Given current global wholesale energy price volatility, Japan is avoiding traditional 20-year contracts for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, and that likely will set the model for the rest of the world since Japan is such a dominant importer of the fuel, according to Tom Giles, COO for Mitsubishi’s U.S.-based Sound Energy Solutions (SES).

Given current global wholesale energy price volatility, Japan is avoiding traditional 20-year contracts for liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, and that likely will set the model for the rest of the world since Japan is such a dominant importer of the fuel, according to Tom Giles, COO for Mitsubishi’s U.S.-based Sound Energy Solutions (SES).

With conventional natural gas supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and other traditional U.S. basins drying up and widespread liquefied natural gas (LNG) access still a question mark, the GOM ultra-deep shelf play is the wild card that could help to pick up some of the slack in domestic supplies, according to Matthew Anstead, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie.

With conventional natural gas supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and other traditional U.S. basins drying up and widespread liquefied natural gas (LNG) access still a question mark, the GOM ultra-deep shelf play is the wild card that could help to pick up some of the slack in domestic supplies, according to Matthew Anstead, an analyst with Wood Mackenzie.

A tightening squeeze by high fuel prices and a regional surplus of generating capacity is pushing Alberta toward adding electricity to its traditional product lines of natural gas and oil as Canada’s principal energy exporting jurisdiction.

Sources indicated that storage injection season is already well under way before what is usually considered its traditional start date — April 1. That demand source, along with continuing solid screen support, were cited as reasons why Thursday’s start of the April aftermarket saw even bigger price jumps in most cases than the one with which March business ended Wednesday.