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Energy price declines eventually will dampen the economics for various alternative energy projects, leaving the administration of President-elect Obama to rediscover natural gas as the “fuel of choice.” This was one of the insights Wednesday from a panel discussing “economical sources of supply” on the second day of the LDC Forum Rockies & West Conference in Irvine, CA.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski held a one-day Energy Summit last Wednesday and broadened his outlook to be all-inclusive of various traditional and alternative energy options, including the import of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Kulongoski would not rule out any options and said he will soon create a state unit to ferret them out.

Pepco Energy Services has been awarded a two-year contract to supply natural gas to various Department of Defense (DoD) facilities and federal civilian agencies in the Northeast and across the central part of the United States.

“Replumbing” the natural gas industry to better connect growing production and demand centers around the nation will have various impacts on gas flows, but won’t do much in the near term to dampen double-digit gas prices, Porter Bennett, president of Bentek Energy, told an industry audience at GasMart 2008 in Chicago. Bennett was part of a panel that looked at market fundamentals of weather, storage and pipeline flows.

“Replumbing” the natural gas industry to better connect growing production and demand centers around the nation will have various impacts on gas flows, but won’t do much in the near term to dampen double-digit gas prices, Porter Bennett, president of Bentek Energy, told an industry audience at GasMart 2008 in Chicago Wednesday. Bennett was part of a panel that looked at market fundamentals of weather, storage and pipeline flows.

Still finding only marginal heating or cooling load in various areas, most of the cash market was still able to realize small gains Monday on the basis of a 27.4-cent spike in June futures on the preceding Friday and the return of industrial load from its typical weekend decline. However, major transportation constraints in the West resulted in a combination of big gains and big losses in the region.

Southern Natural Gas Co. (SNG), a pipeline subsidiary of El Paso Corp., last Monday asked FERC for authorization to place into service the Phase II facilities of its Cypress Pipeline project , an expansion of SNG that would extend from the pipeline’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Georgia to the Florida market. The request comes nearly a year after SNG placed Phase I of the expansion into operation (see NGI, May 7, 2007).

El Paso Corp.’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline has asked FERC for authorization to acquire various ownership interests in approximately 530 miles of pipeline facilities in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore Louisiana from Columbia Gulf Transmission Co. and an affiliate.

El Paso Corp.’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline has asked FERC for authorization to acquire various ownership interests in approximately 530 miles of pipeline facilities in the Gulf of Mexico and onshore Louisiana from Columbia Gulf Transmission Co. and an affiliate.