Page 4 - Intelligence Press News Today

The U.S. natural gas supply situation remained bearish at the end of March, despite "historic lows" in Canadian imports and the dry gas Haynesville Shale continuing to lose popularity among exploration and production (E&P) players, according to a review by Societe Generale's Laurent Key and Stephanie Aymes.

After siting several independent underground natural gas storage facilities during the past decade, California's thirst for storage still has not been quenched, particularly in the northern half of the state. Thus, it is not surprising that a veteran associated with the earlier projects has a new one, but the proposed urban location is a bit eye-popping -- in the middle of the state capital's burgeoning population.

WSI Corp. said Monday that from January-March it expects cooler-than-normal temperatures on average across the northern tier of states and along the Pacific Coast with warmer-than-normal temperatures elsewhere.

Freeport LNG has applied at FERC to construct and operate a natural gas liquids (NGL) extraction system at the Quintana Island liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification terminal in Texas. Adding the capability to extract NGLs would broaden the terminal's options among global LNG supplies and improve the pipeline-readiness of regasified LNG, Freeport LNG said.

Oklahoma energy interests will have a friend in the state's new Republican governor when she takes office Jan. 10. Mary Fallin, the departing representative from Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, has been an advocate for home-grown energy and is the incoming chair of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC).

Canadian drilling is reviving, but producers are switching targets by turning away from natural gas and concentrating on oil as their prices stay on diverging courses. The new focus for hydraulic fracturing techniques is "tight oil."

Global upstream capital spending in 2010 likely will exceed $380 billion, led by a "spectacular" recovery in the United States, Wood Mackenzie said in a new report.

In the midst of a regional trucking transportation hub in the Inland Empire 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, a regional government association is leveraging state and federal grants totaling nearly $20 million with a major national trucking company, Ryder System Inc., to put hundreds of compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) rigs on the road.

In the story published Wednesday, "IHS: Technology to Push Domestic Reserves 'Well Over' 3,000 Tcf" (see Daily GPI, Aug. 15), IHS Inc.'s Pete Stark was misquoted. He said the United States today was "talking about launching U.S. exports," not imports. NGI regrets the error.

Piedmont Natural Gas has completed its Wayne County Pipeline Project, which will provide natural gas delivery service to a new gas-fueled combined-cycle power plant at Progress Energy's H.F. Lee Energy Complex near Goldsboro, NC, the company said Monday.