NGI All News Access

Sources figured it was only a matter of time before this week’swinter storm-related price hikes started to fade, and the time wasThursday. Softening was only slight at most points, however, andseveral registered as flat. The biggest drops of more than a nickeltended to occur in the markets that had seen the biggest increasesearlier in the week, such as Northeast citygates and NorthernNatural-demarc.

The April Nymex contract lost yet another chance to break out ofits recent trading range by falling 3.8-cents to settle Thursday at$2.134. “If April were ever going to break out of its tradingrange, perhaps today was the day,” a trader told GPI. “April brokeabove major resistance at $2.19, and forecasts are calling foranother potential cold front next week. Yet April fell hard afterreaching a high of $2.205. That tells me there is no wayspeculators are buying into the fact that fundamentals warrant ahigher move. It also shows they are wary of initiating fresh longpositions,” he said.

Commissioner Curt Hebert Jr. said a decision in a Granite StateGas Transmission case this week signaled a “radical departure” inthe current policy used by the Commission to judge whether aproposed project has sufficient market demand. Since Order 636, theCommission has required pipelines and other companies to show thatmost, if not all, of a project’s capacity was under long-termcontracts to gain a certificate. “All of that changed [last week],”Hebert told NGI in an interview.

Amoco plans to develop one of its largest gas discoveriesoffshore Trinidad and Tobago to serve future demand on the islandsand supply the Atlantic LNG export project in Trinidad.

Canadian Occidental Petroleum subsidiary CXY Energy of Dallasagreed to acquire 50% of Fina Oil and Chemical’s interests in 64lease blocks in the Gulf of Mexico.

LG&E Energy Marketing (LEM), a subsidiary of LG&EEnergy, has introduced risk management products designed to manageweather-related risk.

The 580 MW Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co. nuclear projectin Haddam, CT, may be converted to burn natural gas on or before itis decommissioned if engineering studies now underway indicate sucha conversion is feasible.

Chesapeake Energy completed its acquisition of Hugoton Energyafter receiving shareholder approvals. Proforma for the Hugotontransaction and other announced pending acquisitions, Chesapeake’sproved oil and gas reserves will be about 1,050 Bcfe, of which 80%are natural gas. In addition, about 70% of Chesapeake’s reserveswill be proved developed producing, and 75% will consist oflong-lived Midcontinent reserves. Estimated proforma dailyproduction will exceed 410 MMcfe. Trading of Hugoton stock ceasedMarch 10, and each outstanding common share of Hugoton stock wasconverted into the right to receive 1.3 shares of Chesapeake commonstock. Holders of fractional shares will receive $8.78/Hugotonshare. About 26 million additional shares of Chesapeake will beissued to Hugoton shareholders. Including $120 million of Hugotondebt assumed by Chesapeake, the transaction is worth about $300million.

Despite already having held a series of hearings on the project,FERC yesterday set for hearing the issue of whether the market needfor a controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility plannedfor a Maine community could be better met by alternative pipelineprojects.