Appearing

Six former presidents will be appearing in commercials supporting natural gas that will air in theaters before motion pictures this summer, thanks to a new advertising campaign by the American Clean Skies Foundation (ACSF), a nonprofit natural gas advocacy group.

With weather, futures, the weekend factor and lack of tropical threat appearing mostly bearish, it wasn’t quite clear how a substantive portion of the cash market managed to achieve small rebounds Friday. But flat to moderately higher numbers showed up at a majority of points, primarily in the Midcontinent/Midwest, Gulf Coast and Rockies.

As Senate Democrats prepares to take up legislation to end the oil and natural gas tax perks, the Senate Finance Committee has called the leading producers to testify Thursday.

Appearing to be pretty comfortable with the current price level, natural gas futures traders nudged the expiring May contract around a 6.5-cent range on Wednesday before it went off the board at $4.377, down a penny from Tuesday’s regular session finish. June futures didn’t display much more oomph as what is now the new front-month contract closed the day at $4.408, down 3.6 cents from Tuesday’s close.

With Tropical Storm Alex appearing to be on a more westerly Gulf of Mexico (GOM) production-sparing path, July natural gas futures on Monday immediately extracted Friday’s premium as the expiring contract declined 14.4 cents to go off the board at $4.717. August futures declined by 17.5 cents to close at $4.733.

Appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court last Tuesday, Connecticut Attorney General (AG) Richard Blumenthal suggested that the court modify the more stringent Mobile-Sierra doctrine to make it more accommodating for noncontracting third parties to challenge contract rate cases. The court’s ruling could have far-reaching ramifications for the sanctity of electricity and natural gas contracts.

Appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal suggested that the court modify the more stringent Mobile-Sierra doctrine to make it more accommodating for noncontracting third parties to challenge contract rate cases. The court’s ruling could have far-reaching ramifications for the sanctity of electricity and natural gas contracts.

After appearing to ignore bearish weather fundamentals in registering price gains at all or nearly all points for nearly a week and a half, the cash market had finally shown signs of cracking Wednesday with mostly small losses at a majority of points. The price dam broke Thursday as substantive double-digit losses occurred across the board.

With the cold regime that has settled into much of the U.S. and Canada appearing more and more set for an extended stay, cash prices continued to rise Tuesday. The advance was across the board for a second day and derived extra support from Monday’s futures spike of 43.3 cents.