Henry Hub

Henry hub natural gas monthly average prices, 1999–2009

The 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. Due to its importance, it lends its name to the pricing point for natural gas futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and the OTC swaps traded on IntercontinentalExchange (ICE).

It interconnects with nine interstate and four intrastate pipelines: Acadian, Columbia Gulf Transmission, Gulf South Pipeline, Bridgeline, NGPL, Sea Robin, Southern Natural Pipeline, Texas Gas Transmission, Transcontinental Pipeline, Trunkline Pipeline, Jefferson Island, and Sabine. The two compressor stations can compress 520,000 decatherm/d (6.3 GW) The transportation capacity is 1.8 billion ft³/d (bcf) (590 m³/s) (20.4 GW).[1]

Spot and future natural gas prices set at Henry Hub are denominated in $/mmbtu (millions of British thermal units) and are generally seen to be the primary price set for the North American natural gas market. North American unregulated wellhead prices are closely correlated to those set at Henry Hub.

History

The "Henry" hub is so named for its location in the Henry hamlet of Erath, which was named after the Henry High School that stood there until damaged by the flooding and storm surge from Hurricanes Ike[2] and Rita,[3] though the natural gas facilities suffered minimal damage.

This school was named for its benefactor, William Henry, who originally immigrated from Germany as William Henry Kittenkat circa 1840,[4] then dropped the surname. There are Henry descendants in the area to this day. It was customary for benefactors to sponsor schools; there were other similarly sponsored schools in Vermilion Parish around that time.[5]

Henry Hub began operations in March 1988.

NYMEX began offering standarized natural gas contracts with delivery at the Henry Hub in April 1990.

In 2011, the Henry Hub was the site of a land dispute, in which Sabine sued to condemn land near the site of their hub, and expropriate it from the Broussard family, who had owned it for generations, arguing that it was acting in the national interest.[6] The lawsuit was settled in 2012, and in 2013 a second, older, lawsuit was settled with Texaco (like Sabine, a Chevron company) for contamination of Broussard land which Texaco had leased for many decades.[7]

References

  1. ↑ Sabine Pipe Line, LLC, 2000
  2. ↑ "Topic Report: Hurricane Ike Update". www.apachecorp.com. September 22, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
  3. ↑ "The Disaster Center's Tropical Storm – Hurricane Rita Page". www.disastercenter.com. October 6, 2005. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
  4. ↑ Perrin, Warren A. (2011). Vermilion Parish. Mt. Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Pub. p. 27. ISBN 9780738582245. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  5. ↑ Bodin, Stacy. "History of the Erath Schools". Vermilion Parish Schools. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
  6. ↑ "Bitter Twist in Louisiana Family’s Long Drilling Fight". New York Times. December 30, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-30.
  7. ↑ "Broussard family from Henry settles lawsuit with Chevron over contaminated land at Henry Hub gas plant". The Vermillion Today. 2013-05-20. Retrieved 2014-04-10.

http://louisiana.hometownlocator.com/la/vermilion/henry.cfm

External links

Coordinates: 29°53′55″N 92°4′7″W / 29.89861°N 92.06861°W