Achieved

A material increase in North American drilling activity may not be achieved until New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) natural gas futures prices approach $9/MMBtu, but high storage levels, increasing liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and a lack of extreme heat could, in fact, put the chill on prices, energy analysts said in separate reports Monday.

Environmental Power Corp. subsidiary Microgy Holdings LLC has achieved the initial delivery of pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG) from the Huckabay Ridge facility in Stephenville, TX. The facility is able to generate biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, condition the biogas to natural gas standards and distribute RNG — Microgy’s branded, renewable, pipeline-quality methane product — via a commercial pipeline.

Environmental Power Corp. subsidiary Microgy Holdings LLC has achieved the initial delivery of pipeline-quality renewable natural gas (RNG) from the Huckabay Ridge facility in Stephenville, TX. The facility is able to generate biogas from manure and other agricultural waste, condition the biogas to natural gas standards and distribute RNG — Microgy’s branded, renewable, pipeline-quality methane product — via a commercial pipeline.

Just when it seemed that cash prices had nowhere to go but down for quite a while, the market achieved a rally Thursday — sort of. Actually it was only a partial rally, as quite a few instances of flat quotes were scattered among points that were mostly less than a dime up or down from flat.

Electronic energy marketplace IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) said Friday that ICE Futures, its regulated futures subsidiary, achieved an exchange-wide daily volume record on Thursday. The Atlanta-based company reported that total volume in ICE Futures markets reached 430,939 contracts, surpassing the April 25 record of 407,303 contracts by 5.8%. Total open interest stood at 948,239 contracts, up 46.2% compared to 648,585 contracts at December 31, 2005. ICE Futures, which is the home of the benchmark Brent Crude futures contract, introduced the fully electronic WTI Crude futures contract in February of this year.

The Ticonderoga field in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, jointly owned by Kerr-McGee Corp. and Noble Energy Inc., achieved first production last week, nearly two months ahead of schedule. Ticonderoga, operated by Kerr-McGee, holds an estimated 30-50 million boe and has reached peak production volumes of 20,000 bbl/d of oil and 15 MMcf/d of natural gas.

With disappearing heating load and the previous day’s screen plunge exacerbated by the extra reduction of industrial demand associated with a long holiday weekend, cash prices tanked by more than a dollar — more than $2 in quite a few cases — across the board Friday.

Tulsa-based independent Vintage Petroleum Inc. said Monday it internally increased its oil and natural gas production in 2004 and achieved a 5% increase in aggregate contributions from all of its producing areas. It also estimated year-end proved reserves at 437.2 million boe, with 2004 output from continuing operations of 24.5 million boe.

Natural gas pipeline owner Williams Cos. moved into the financial win column in the fourth quarter of 2004 due in part to a gain associated with an insurance arbitration award and reduced debt levels.