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A group of natural gas producers and marketers has asked FERC toextend until July 9th the deadline for producer payments of anestimated $500 million in customer refunds. The refunds, which aredue March 9th, are owed to customers who purchased gas produced inKansas during the 1980s at costs that, because they included thestate’s ad valorem tax, exceeded the level allowed under theNatural Gas Policy Act (NGPA).

February prices were flat to a little higher Monday, sourcesreported. One said buyers thought they would be able to knockprices down, “but you couldn’t.” There is plenty of demand and it’svirtually all storage-related, he went on. “All of a sudden we’reseeing February turn into an injection month,” and that’s what iskeeping demand high, he said

For now, Nova Gas Transmission continues to handle about 80%(4.5 Tcf in 1997, or 12.3 Bcf/d) of Canadian gas on its provincialgathering grid because Alberta remains both the biggest producerand center of growth in output. But expectations of serious growthin British Columbia showed clearly when the National Energy Boardvisited the province’s resource development frontier of Fort St.John for regional hearings on the Alliance Pipeline Project

CNG Energy Services of Pittsburgh signed a three-year contractwith Ormet Corp., one the nation’s largest aluminum producers andsuppliers of aluminum products, to provide gas management servicefor eight Ormet facilities in the United States. The facilitiesconsume about 12 Bcf/year

Williams opened the doors to its new 300-position,21,000-square-foot energy trading floor, which it says featurestechnology, design and amenities surpassing those of most companiesin the nation. The trading floor is part of a new236,000-square-foot resource center adjacent to the 50-floorWilliams Tower in Tulsa, OK, where Williams has its corporateheadquarters. “As the second most profitable energy marketer in thenation, we remain committed to our customers by providing ourtraders with the absolute best tools available to compete andsucceed,” said Jerry Gollnick, senior vice president of energymarketing and trading for Williams.

The upstream Canadian portion of the Portland Natural GasTransmission Project – the PNGTS Extension, which will link theU.S. pipeline with TransCanada PipeLines via an extension of theTrans Qu‚bec & Maritimes — received a favorable environmentalreview from Canada’s National Energy Board. The NEB concluded the132-mile extension is “not likely to cause significant adverseenvironmental effects, provided that the mitigative measuresidentified during the public hearing are implemented and enforced.”The NEB submitted its Comprehensive Study Report on the project tothe federal Minister of Environment and to the CanadianEnvironmental Assessment Agency last week

A leading gas marketer last week decried FERC’s reprimand ofNatural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL) formarketing-affiliate improprieties as being far too light. The minoradmonishment, according to Natural Gas Clearinghouse (NGC), failedto provide adequate redress to the overall market, and producersand marketers victimized by the Midwest pipeline’s wrongdoing.

Cash prices for the weekend were down almost across the boardFriday, succumbing to mild weather and lower weekend demand.However, noting the late rebound in the Henry Hub futures contract,a marketer thinks that set the stage for a modest rally in cashnumbers today. He looks for Midcontinent pipes to move back up intothe low $2.10s.

The March Nymex futures contract fell another 1.9 cents to$2.198 Friday, as traders continued the falloff in prices theystarted on Thursday. “This was not a case of traders gunning forstops, where they try to push the contract under support hoping thecontract will fall even more. This was simply an extension ofThursday,” a broker said.