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Near-month gas futures tumbled 21.4 cents on St. Patrick’s Day in weak trading to end the week at $7.053, up about 33 cents from where the week started but with a clear indication that the recent rally has lost significant steam.

A quest to revive growth in Canadian natural gas supplies by tapping the nation’s vast coal seams has spread to the Atlantic region, where a Calgary-based specialist reports initial technical success with methane drilling.

With momentum building in all six western states where the utility operates, Utah and Wyoming became the first two states to approve the proposed $9.4 billion purchase of PacifiCorp from ScottishPower by Iowa-based utility holding company MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., part of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. Utah regulators approved the deal last Friday, and Wyoming’s regulators earlier gave a verbal okay with a final written order to be issued next week, effective Feb. 10.

Tennessee said it has partially restored service at Compressor Station 25 in Cleveland, TX, where it declared a force majeure event in late November due to equipment failure (see Daily GPI, Dec. 1, 2005). However, due to the unavailability of certain parts, three units still remain out of service, it added in a Friday notice. Each unit is targeted to be back in service as follows: one by late January, a second by mid-April and the third by early May. Tennessee had periodically been restricting about 15% of station capacity since the equipment failure, but said Friday that based on current throughput, it does not anticipate any further curtailments. However, the pipeline said, if throughput rises, it estimates that about 5% of Station 25 volumes would be restricted.

Procurement of natural gas imports for the northeastern United States is changing methods and migrating from Alberta to Ontario, where TransCanada PipeLines will overhaul its eastern end to accommodate the switch.

Columbia Gulf notified operators Monday at nine Eugene Island platforms where it and/or Tennessee has meters (see Daily GPI, Sept. 19) that they must shut in and take nominations to zero immediately in order to allow Columbia Gulf to make repairs to a leak on its 20-inch line in the Eugene Island 264 area. “Operators should not begin flowing gas until further notice,” Columbia Gulf said.

Picking up where last week ended, July natural gas futures continued to explore higher on Monday, breaking through the $7.02 high point from last week to notch a new high of $7.24.

The campaign to throw construction of the Canadian leg in the Alaska gas pipeline project open to competition reached the top of the Canadian government, where a senior committee of the Liberal cabinet Thursday opened its doors to Enbridge Inc.

The campaign to throw construction of the Canadian leg in the Alaska gas pipeline project open to competition reached the top of the Canadian government, where a senior committee of the Liberal cabinet Thursday opened its doors to Enbridge Inc.