April

March natural gas is expected to open 3 cents higher Monday morning at $2.98 as longer-term weather forecasts push continued cold out to the middle of March. Overnight oil markets tumbled.

Despite oil and gas companies taking divergent strategies in Ohio’s portion of the Utica Shale — and the elusiveness of a “sweet spot” for producers — the play offers ample opportunities for production and investment, according to a report released Wednesday by the law firm Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP.

Domestic natural gas production was a hair more than 2.60 Tcf in April, and production in the first four months of the year reached 10.31 Tcf, a 4.7% increase from 9.85 Tcf in the same period in 2013, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Natural gas production in the shale-rich “Other States” category was down 0.5% in April compared with the previous month, and total U.S. production of just over 2.60 Tcf in April pushed the total for the first four months of the year to 10.31 Tcf, a 4.7% increase from the same period in 2013, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Texas oil and gas production during April was up from year-ago levels, according to preliminary figures compiled by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

Noble Energy Inc. is buying into 17 leases owned by BP Exploration & Production Inc. in the promising Atwater Valley (AV) region of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), an area that drew some big spenders in the March federal lease sale.

As anticipated for months, North Dakota finally cracked the magic 1 million bbl mark for daily crude oil production in April, joining an elite list of oil-producing states and nations, according to state officials Tuesday who released the most recent production totals for oil and natural gas. Records keep being set with regularity.

Texas preliminary March crude oil production averaged 2.01 million b/d, up from the 1.62 million b/d average of March 2013. Cumulative March production was 62.45 million bbl, up from 50.09 million bbl reported during March 2013, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC).

An explosion and fire at Williams Company’s Opal, WY, processing plant last month put only limited pressure on natural gas prices in the region, and Henry Hub spot prices are expected to decline through this summer, but not to the depths previously forecast, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).