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Even though the oil and gas industry is preparing for the “backside of the cycle” as natural gas prices fall, companies are in a better position today than in 1998, when financially constrained producers were forced to limit capital spending and drilling activity to service their debt, according to Raymond James Energy’s Stat of the Week. Analyst Wayne Andrews said, “this time around, producers have worked to maintain financial flexibility through the peak and appear to be in a much better position to handle the potential weakness in commodity prices.”

The embattled Canada-to-New York Millennium Pipeline project has been assailed for nearly every conceivable reason, or so it was thought. As the nation last week dealt with the shock of the deadly terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., it took a New York state resident only one day after the double assaults to protest the proposed Millennium line on the grounds that it posed a prime target for terrorists.

A blue-ribbon team of veteran Canadian experts on natural gas supplies has set out to correct a starry-eyed vision of frontier resources that it says has periodically distorted North American energy policies and needs to be cleared up.

Calgary-based Canadian 88 Energy Corp. said Thursday it has successfully drilled a significant deep natural gas well in Western Alberta to a depth of 15,709 feet. The well is a stepout into the prolific Blackstone Devonian Swan Hills gas pool and log results indicate 98 feet of highly porous dolomite gas pay, averaging 10% porosity analogous to other wells in the pool.

Bidder Communications Inc. (BIDC) said on Thursday that as part of its diversification strategy the company has acquired 100% ownership of Southern States Gas Gathering LLC of Louisiana. The acquisition gives BIDC entry into the southern energy resource market.

Florida Gas Transmission ended an Overage Alert Day notice Thursday. PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest (GTN) announced a maintenance postponement. An outage of compressor Unit 4B, previously scheduled for Wednesday through today, is now set for Oct. 3-5. It will limit Kingsgate capacity to 2,390 MMcf/d. GTN also said it will begin an unscheduled overhaul of the A compressor at Station 11 next Tuesday, The work, which will continue through Sept. 30, will cut capacity through Station 14 to 1,870 MMcf/d.

Like everyone else in the United States, we at Intelligence Press are struggling to make sense of this gigantic catastrophe which has struck at the very foundation of this nation. Our sympathy and condolences go out to those who have suffered and lost loved ones in New York, Washington and Southwest Pennsylvania. As are many others, we are making a financial contribution to the recovery process. We also offer this, our first editorial in 21 years of publishing, as support for the bruised and battered spirits of all Americans.

Prices fell Thursday in the wake of a large storage injection report and a continuing dearth of air conditioning load. Volumes and trading activity remained minimal in the absence of futures guidance, and sources reported that the feelings of grief and numbness from the attacks against New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon were slow in dissipating.

The New York Mercantile Exchange decided not to have an abbreviated Access trading session yesterday, but will attempt to schedule a session on Friday for all contracts currently listed on Nymex Access. The exchange previously had said it would work toward having a two-hour session Thursday afternoon.