Unexpected

The unexpected increase in oil prices in the second quarter has boosted the third quarter natural gas forecast by management consultant R.W. Beck. On Tuesday, Beck revised upward its prediction of the annual average price at Henry Hub by 50 cents/MMBtu to $5.86.

Industry analysts whose predictions were almost entirely out of the money on last week’s storage injection have offered various explanations for the big dip in the numbers announced by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). The consensus of prognosticators had centered around a mid-80s Bcf build, so the 72 Bcf that EIA said was injected into underground natural gas storage for the week ended July 16 came as a shock.

Draft legislation endorsed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal that would create an environmental fund to pay for unexpected impacts from the state’s burgeoning coalbed methane (CBM) development is under fire by the state’s influential oil and gas industry.

Draft legislation endorsed by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal that would create an environmental fund to pay for unexpected impacts from the state’s burgeoning coalbed methane (CBM) development is under fire by the state’s influential oil and gas industry.

Due to unexpected operational difficulties, Dominion said early Friday it was unable to move shut-in gas onto the Equitrans system at the Copley and West Union meters that day as previously planned (see Daily GPI, Nov. 7). It is imperative that producers on the “wet” gathering system behind Dominion’s Hastings Extraction Plant in West Virginia, where an explosion and fire occurred Oct. 31, remain shut in until the gas is able to be transferred to Equitrans, Dominion said. Affected customers were urged to check the bulletin board regularly for further updates.

In an unexpected twist, the SEC on Friday asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to reject Enron Corp.’s hiring of Stephen F. Cooper as CEO, calling the terms of his million dollar contract and bonus guarantee inappropriate. Enron wants court approval to hire the bankruptcy specialist as an independent contractor as interim CEO and chief restructuring officer with an annual salary of $1.32 million a year and a bonus of at least $5 million once the restructuring is completed.

In an unexpected twist, the SEC on Friday asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York to reject Enron Corp.’s hiring of Stephen F. Cooper as CEO, calling the terms of his million dollar contract and bonus guarantee inappropriate. Enron wants court approval to hire the bankruptcy specialist as an independent contractor, with the title of interim CEO and chief restructuring officer, at an annual salary of $1.32 million a year and a bonus of at least $5 million once the restructuring is completed.

Pacific Gas & Electric did not extend a high-linepack OFO with zero tolerance for positive imbalances beyond Saturday.

Questar experienced a mechanical failure Thursday in Unit #7 atits Clay Basin storage facility. Barring unexpected complications,repairs should be complete by today and the unit available forservice again on Tuesday’s gas day, the pipeline said. Injectioncapacity has been reduced to 235,000 Dth/d during the outage.Allocation of injection capacity was expected to occur each day,with the impact determined by customer nominations. However, thereis no impact on withdrawal nominations, Questar said.