Updates
March 28, 2013: Rigzone is reporting:
ConocoPhillips will close its J-Block natural-gas operations in the U.K. North Sea for 10 days from April 8, the company said Thursday.
In a notice on its website, ConocoPhillips said the shut-down, which is weather dependent, will involve the Judy/Joanne, Jade and Jasmine fields, which together supply between 4.5 million and 5 million cubic meters of gas a day.
Last week, the U.K. government issued a statement to reassure consumers that the country's supply of natural gas would be sustained, despite the closure of a crucial pipeline connected to mainland Europe, during an ongoing period of unseasonably cold weather, and the low volume of gas in storage.
Original Post
The BBC (hardly a conservative, Fox station) is reporting:
Severe weather continues to cause disruption across parts of the UK, as forecasters warn the cold temperatures will last until mid-April.
Thousands of people in western Scotland are without power for a sixth day and further snow has caused difficult road conditions.
In Northern Ireland, the RAF is delivering emergency food supplies to remote farms for a second day. Isle of Man farmers are searching for livestock buried in the snow. And thousands of animals are thought trapped in snow drifts in Northern Ireland.
Current daytime temperatures across the UK are wallowing at around 2-3C. The BBC weather centre said temperatures currently look set to remain below average until about mid-April.Closer to home, Bloomberg is reporting cooler temperatures for the US:
Natural gas futures advanced to an 18-month high in New York on forecasts of colder-than-normal April weather that would increase heating-fuel demand, widening a year-on-year inventory deficit.
Gas gained as much as 2.2 percent after MDA Weather Services in Gaithersburg, Maryland, predicted below-normal temperatures in the Midwest from April 1 through April 10. Stockpiles slid by 89 billion cubic feet last week, according to the median of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Supplies gained 45 billion in the same week last year.
“The forecasts are colder-than-normal and we’re going to have a pretty bullish inventory report tomorrow,” said Dominick Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute in New York. “Ending the season with stockpiles strongly below last year’s level is a tremendous accomplishment, considering where we started.”
