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Irving Oil Ltd., which has operated the deepwater terminal Irving Canaport in New Brunswick since 1970, has applied for a permit to add a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal to the site, located about 60 miles from the U.S. border. The proposed project, which would cost about C$500 million to construct, would give Canaport, which has a current total tank capacity of 12.5 MMbbl, the ability to receive LNG cargoes and vaporize the LNG for send-out over the pipeline grid.

Taking advantage of falling natural gas prices that have pushed down the worth of energy companies, Dominion announced last week it will acquire Louis Dreyfus Natural Gas Corp.– with 89% of its production in natural gas — for $2.3 billion in cash, stock and assumed debt. The deal will improve the utility giant’s gas reserves by 60% and grow its energy trading business, which in turn could lead to some generation acquisitions down the road, according to Dominion’s CEO.

The terrorist attack on New York delayed a shareholder vote on Montana Power Co.’s planned sale of its gas and power distribution business to NorthWestern Corp. for $602 million in cash and assumption of $488 million in debt. The vote was scheduled to take place on Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Mother Lode Theater in Butte, MT, however the New York company in charge of tabulating the votes was affected by the terrorist attacks. In addition, the New York Stock Exchange was closed and isn’t expected to open until today.

The energy industry managed to maintain operations while in a state of alarm last week following the horrific terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon and left hundreds dead in western Pennsylvania. While no damage was done to energy infrastructure other than to those distribution lines in close proximity to the attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, the experience will serve as a wake-up call to the government and the industry that energy security and reliability issues for once shouldn’t take a back seat to other matters.

Transwestern Pipeline last week said it had a successful open season for its proposed Sun Devil expansion, which, upon completion, will serve the Phoenix, AZ, natural gas market. The open season, which ended on Aug. 30, elicited requests for more than 1.3 Bcf/d — equal to the proposed capacity of the Sun Devil expansion, and nearly double the existing capacity of Transwestern, the Enron pipeline noted.

A highly stressful trading week came to a close Friday with most of the market in a general holding pattern. Flat to barely higher or lower numbers prevailed at a majority of points; declines of about a nickel or more were concentrated in the Rockies and California.

Despite the sharp downturn in natural gas prices, Mirant CFO Raymond D. Hill said his company is on a substantial gas expansion program. Mirant expects to double its participation in the gas market over the next four years.

El Paso Corp. said that it has received several inquires regarding the expandability of the Willcox Lateral to serve new markets off the east leg of the lateral. Of the 130,000 Mcf/d of capacity on the Willcox Lateral, 92,166 Mcf/d has been subscribed, leaving 37,834 Mcf/d of un-subscribed capacity available. The lateral runs 60 miles from the El Paso mainline in Cochise County, AZ, to border crossing facilities and is aimed at serving several existing and proposed gas-fired power plants in Mexico’s northern state of Sonora.

The New York Mercantile Exchange re-opened Friday for a two-hour Internet-based, eNymex Access trading session, making it the first New York exchange to resume trading, three and a half days after terrorists ripped the heart out of Wall Street with the destruction of the World Trade Center. Nymex, whose regular address is just a few hundred yards away from where the Trade Center used to be, ran Friday’s trading from an off-site location. It had suspended natural gas futures trading before the opening of the regular open-outcry session on Tuesday, after the first plane hit the Trade Center at 8:45 a.m. EDT.