Rebecca Watson News

Britain's Isle of Grain liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal will test whether it can also export supply by loading a quantity of fuel onto inbound tanker Asia Vision on Thursday, a spokeswoman for operator National Grid said. This month National Grid outlined plans to add a reload system for small vessels at Europe's biggest import facility and launched an open season to gauge demand. The system will allow imported LNG to be loaded back on to different ships for onward delivery to higher-paying markets. Currently, the terminal only imports LNG. "On Thursday March 26 we will be testing our reloading capabilities by loading a quantity of LNG onto the Asia Vision LNG tanker," National Grid press officer Rebecca Watson said.

While U.S. officials expect 90 percent of the Gulf oil and gas production facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina to be back on line in less than a month, gas prices will most likely remain elevated for some time as the supply rebuilds, according to a UPI report. Four producing refineries accounting for approximately 5% of total capacity are expected to remain off line for several months, the Energy Department said. Supplies from the Gulf of Mexico provide 29 percent of U.S. domestic oil production and 21 percent of U.S. domestic gas production.