weather

The recent storage- and weather-driven downturn in natural gas prices has given investors pause, but producers remain undaunted, according to Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Barring a snap back to cold weather, look for natural gas prices to remain “soft” at around $7/MMBtu and perhaps less for the remainder of the first half of this year, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service said in a 2006 oil and gas trends research note released last week.

Northern Natural Gas said late Wednesday afternoon that due to weather conditions and dive boat availability, for the time being it is not anticipating the return to service of any platforms downstream of Matagorda 758 on the Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System (MOPS), which Northern operates. As of Tuesday Northern had hoped to restore operations at several MOPs platforms sometime Thursday (see Daily GPI, March 8).

At least one source likened the cash market to a magician. Despite mostly moderate weather fundamentals, bearish storage conditions and a 24.3-cent screen drop on the previous day, it was able to pull a mostly higher-priced “rabbit” out of its hat Tuesday.

Barring a snap back to cold weather, look for natural gas prices to remain “soft” at around $7/MMBtu and perhaps less for the remainder of the first half of this year, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service said in a 2006 oil and gas trends research note released Tuesday.

Citing forecasts of “extremely warm weather” for its service area, MRT said a System Protection Warning (SPW) will take effect at the start of Tuesday’s gas day until further notice. Under the SPW, all shippers must balance receipts and deliveries, and MRT said it will not allow imbalances that result in an overdelivery of supplies into its system.

Due to more moderate weather forecasts for most of its Pacific Northwest market area, Northwest said it would terminate effective Saturday (Feb. 25) the Stage II Unauthorized Overrun Entitlement implemented Feb. 17 for all Receiving Party customers north of Kemmerer Compressor Station (see Daily GPI, Feb. 17). The Blue Lake area stress relief excavation was completed around midnight Wednesday, Northwest said, and it expected to restore full design capacity through the Columbia River Gorge Thursday afternoon.

CIG declared an OFO Saturday because of the extremely cold weather in its market area, then ended it Sunday. Wellhead freeze-offs in the Rockies limited the amount of supply that CIG could deliver to Xcel Energy’s Public Service Co. of Colorado utility, resulting in rolling power outages of brief duration Saturday (see related story).

Saying cold weather was forecasted to continue in Florida through Tuesday night and its linepack was lower, Florida Gas Transmission kept an Overage Alert Day issued Sunday for customers in its market area in effect through at least Tuesday, but loosened the tolerance for negative daily imbalances from Monday’s 15% to 20% Tuesday.