Invigorated by a strong second quarter, Texas-based MitchellEnergy said last week it is increasing its capital budget by $31million to total $167 million. Most of the increases will bededicated to escalating the company’s drilling program. With thisstepped-up activity, gas production is expected to reach the 250MMcf/d range by the end of the year. Mitchell said production atthat level would equal its January output, before gas prices felldramatically.
NGI The Weekly Gas Market Report
Articles from NGI The Weekly Gas Market Report
Williams Predicts 3Q Earnings Shortfall
Williams share prices slid 5% but then rebounded late last weekand analysts adjusted their earnings forecasts following anannouncement that the company expects third quarter earnings pershare to be “substantially below” current Wall Street estimates of20 cents/share. The company said a change in accounting standardsand cooler than normal temperatures in Southern California, itsmajor power sales area, were to blame. But that’s just half thestory.
Columbia Keeps Northeast Activity Rolling
Columbia Natural Resources (CNR) kept its whirlwind ofAppalachian Basin activity alive last week, by announcing thepurchase of gas fields and related assets in Steuben County, NY,from Pittsburgh, PA-based Meridian Exploration Corp. No financialterms of the deal were disclosed. CNR took control of the assetslast week.
OCC, ONG Agree On Assets to Unbundle
After more than a year of wrangling between Oklahoma Natural GasCo. and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) an agreement onwhich of the LDC’s transmission and distribution assets will beregulated and which will be unregulated and open to competitivebidding has been hammered out.
Independents, Majors Fear NGA May Vanish on OCS
Both independent and major producers fear that FERC’s proposedrulemaking on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), which seeks toextend regulation to virtually all offshore gas pipelines under thelighter handed Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), is thefirst step in a Commission plan to eventually abandon its NaturalGas Act regulation in the offshore.
Customers Want ‘Immediate Relief’ Back in Complaint Process
A broad coalition of natural gas and electric trade groups haveasked FERC to reconsider a July rehearing decision that prompted itto purge any reference to immediate relief from its final rule oncomplaint procedures.
Southern LNG Denies Allegations of Affiliate Preference
Southern LNG Inc. last week launched a scathing denial of theallegations that it conducted an open season in secret in order toaward to an affiliate all the teminalling capacity in its liquefiednatural gas (LNG) facilities on Elba Island in Georgia. The companyis seeking to reactivate the facilities, which have been dormantsince the early 1980s.
FERC OKs Transco’s NC Lateral Over State Regulators’ Protest
FERC last week gave Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line the go-aheadto build a $1.2 million lateral and associated facilities in NorthCarolina over the objections of state regulators, who argued thefacilities would constitute a bypass of a local distributioncompany.
California Studies New Pipelines for Power
As the list of planned new natural gas-fired power plants inCalifornia lengthens, state officials have begun to survey thedeliverability of resources to fuel those plants.
PG&E Attempts to Block Western’s Pipeline Plan
Pacific Gas and Electric is attempting to block Denver-basedWestern Gas Resources’ plans for moving into a heavilyindustrialized part of the utility’s East San Francisco Bay serviceterritory by converting a proprietary gas pipeline to astate-regulated, open-access supply line serving proposed newmerchant power plants in Pittsburg, CA, along with surroundinglarge industrial loads.