Category:

Natural gas storage injections typically continue beyond the end of October

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report In natural gas markets, analysts refer to the storage injection season as running from April 1 through October 31 of each year, but these dates are not strict cutoff points. In each of the past 11 years, going back to the first full year of EIA’s weekly gas storage surveys, there have been net injections during one or more weeks in November. In 6 of those years, there have been multiple weeks of net injections. There have also been multiple weeks within the injection season when the weekly change resulted in a net withdrawal. In two of the past five years, 2009 and 2011, inventories on the last day of November have been greater than the tallies for October. In 2012, there was a week with net injections as late as December. Similarly, the nominal beginning of the injection […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

US FERC Approves Dominion’s Cove Point LNG Export Facility

WASHINGTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) – U.S. federal regulators on Monday approved construction of Dominion Resources Inc’s liquefied natural gas export project in Cove Point, Maryland. Cove Point is the fourth U.S. LNG export project to get the green light to begin construction from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It will be able to export up to 5.75 million metric tons of LNG a year when fully operational. Dominion’s facility is one of about two dozen projects that hope to ship a growing bounty of domestic natural gas to countries in Asia and Europe. The Cove Point site, a little more than an hour’s drive southeast of Washington, D.C. on Chesapeake Bay, boasts four large storage tanks and a pier built in the 1970s to import LNG from Algeria, underscoring just how much U.S. market dynamics have changed. "We are pleased to receive this final approval that allows us to […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Second U.S. newspaper probes aging gas pipelines

Second U.S. newspaper in a week publishes report on aging natural gas pipeline network. UPI/John Angelillo JACKSON, Miss., Sept. 25 (UPI) — Accidental damage to aging natural gas pipelines in Mississippi are a leading cause of accidents, newspaper investigations found. The Clarion-Ledger , a Mississippi newspaper, teamed up with USA Today to examine records on the network of natural gas pipelines in Mississippi. They said state laws mandating the public notify authorities before any land excavation aren’t enforced . "So many times, people will inadvertently hit a pipeline and, rather than call the gas company, they’ll wrap it or cover it up," Mark McCarver, former director of the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s Pipeline Safety Division, said in an article published Tuesday. "That’s the No. 1 risk." The newspapers found more than 48 percent of the state’s pipelines were installed before 1970, versus a national average of 38 percent. The […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Asian LNG Buyers Bet on Growing Supply, Evolving Markets

ByEric Yep A liquefied natural gas tanker is berthed at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Futtsu gas-fired thermal power plant. Bloomberg News Asian natural-gas consumers are betting that a new wave of gas supply and a rapidly evolving marketplace will help reduce prices in the next two to three years, executives said at a gas conference in Singapore. Liquefied natural gas is priced higher in Asia due to the additional cost of converting the gas into a liquid and transporting it on ships. Gas producers have also enjoyed strong prices as the fuel was in short supply after the Fukushima nuclear disaster shut Japan’s nuclear reactors and regional demand surged. “Asian buyers currently pay a premium for LNG; in 2012, this premium amounted to almost $130 billion,” said Seah Moon Ming, chief executive of Singapore’s Pavilion Energy. Pavilion Energy is a portfolio company of state-investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd. […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

China-Russia pipeline deal to shape global LNG prices: Tokyo Gas official

Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (Platts)–24Sep2014/1143 pm EDT/343 GMT The deal between Russia and China for importing some 38 billion cubic meters/year of natural gas through a pipeline connecting the two countries represents a key development not only for the two parties involved, but also for the role it will have in shaping the global price of LNG, according to Shigeru Muraki, vice chairman of the board at Japan’s Tokyo Gas. Speaking at the Adam Smith Sakhalin Oil and Gas 2014 conference in the Russian Far East late Wednesday, September 24, Muraki said that the many LNG export projects coming on stream in the next years in countries such as Australia, Russia and the US will not only have to compete between each other for demand, but also against the price set by pipeline imports deals such as the one between Russia and China, which has an estimated price of around $12/MMBtu. Russia […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Report: Pennsylvania gas lines leaking

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 24 (UPI) — Billions of dollars are needed to update the vast network of natural gas pipelines, some at least 90 years old, beneath Pennsylvania, a newspaper report found. About 20 percent of the natural gas pipelines in Pennsylvania were installed before 1960, twice the average national age of pipeline infrastructure. Data compiled by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review found a gas leak reported in one out of every three miles of pipe last year, making it one of the leakiest networks in the United States. "We have a ticking time bomb under most of our cities, especially in the Northeast where we have older cities," Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski said in a report published Tuesday. Gas explosions in the last 10 years left 10 people dead and 21 others injured, the Tribune found. Pennsylvania is home to the Marcellus shale natural gas basin . Energy consultant group Wood […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Natural Gas: Injections Soon To Turn Into Withdrawals

Summary The price of natural gas is volatile. Last year’s cold winter depleted inventories. This summer inventories were rebuilt, but remain below last year’s level and the five-year average. A cold winter this year will cause natural gas prices to explode. Natural gas is one of the most volatile commodities that trade. The New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) introduced futures on Henry Hub natural gas in April 1990. Henry Hub is a distribution hub on the natural gas pipeline system in Erath, Louisiana owned by Sabine Pipe Line LLC, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation. Since 1990, active month natural gas futures have traded in a range between a low of $1.02 per million British thermal units (mmbtus) in January 1992 and a high of $15.65 per mmbtus in October 2005. Price spikes to the upside in 2005 and again in 2008 were due to hurricane activity in the Gulf […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

More gas capacity planned for N.D., Wyo.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 23 (UPI) — Energy company ONEOK said it plans to invest at least $480 million on shale natural gas processing infrastructure in North Dakota and Wyoming. ONEOK said it would invest between $480 million and $680 million between now and late 2016 to expand gas processing capabilities and associated infrastructure in the Bakken and Niobrara shale formations. A facility in Dunn County, N.D., would be able to process 80 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Bakken shale formation in the state. North Dakota lags behind other oil-producing states in gas utilization , but set a goal of capturing 90 percent of associated gas within six years. ONEOK said it’s built 11 new natural gas processing plants since 2010, including eight in the Bakken region of North Dakota. The company says its gas processing capacity in the region should increase by more than […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

Range agrees to pay $4.15 million to settle Pennsylvania DEP charges

WASHINGTON, DC, Sept. 22 09/22/2014 Range Resources Corp ., Fort Worth, has agreed to pay a $4.15 million fine, close five impoundments, and upgrade two others at its Washington County operations, Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) reported. The fine is the biggest against an oil and gas producer in the state’s shale drilling era, the agency said on Sept. 18. Violations included releases of contaminants, such as leaking flowback, that affected soil and groundwater, PDEP said. There has been no impact on drinking water from any of these impoundments, it noted. Under a consent order it reached with the agency, Range will begin to close its Hopewell Township 11 (Lowry), Cecil Township 23 (Worstell), and Kearns impoundments. Range also will continue the closure of the Yeager impoundment. It also must close the Hopewell Township 12 (Bednarski) impoundment by Apr. 1, 2015. DEP said the consent order also directs […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
Category:

EU confirms schedule for trilateral gas talks

| License Photo BRUSSELS, Sept. 22 (UPI) — The European Commission confirmed a trilateral meeting with Russian and Ukrainian energy ministers was scheduled for Friday in Berlin. The commission said European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger would sit down with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Ukrainian Energy Minister Yuri Prodan. No agenda was given in Monday’s announcement . Russian media reported European leaders were ready to discuss reliable gas transits and would consider the status of the planned South Stream gas pipeline if the issue was raised. Members of the European Parliament passed a resolution Thursday calling on "EU countries to cancel planned energy sector agreements with Russia, including the South Stream gas pipeline." South Stream is a Russian option to avoid geopolitically sensitive territory in Ukraine, plagued by conflict since a November pivot toward the European Union . Russia meets about a quarter of Europe’s gas needs, though […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple