Bang

July natural gas futures went out with a bang on Wednesday as the contract broke two significant patterns en route to its close at $6.929, up 5.2 cents from Tuesday. Not only did the contract break the streak of seven consecutive regular session lower closes, it also was the first expiring prompt-month contract in five months not to go off the board in the $7.50s.

Starting off the week with more of a whimper than a bang, natural gas futures traders pushed the April contract within a slim 10-cent range between $7.200 and $7.3000 before the contract closed out the regular trading session at $7.254, down 1.5 cents from Friday’s close. May natural gas dropped 2.3 cents to finish at $7.383.

Starting the week with more of a whimper than a bang, April natural gas futures on Monday traded within an anemic 6-cent range between $6.820 and $6.880 before settling at $6.847, down 7.7 cents for the day. While activity in natural gas ring was muted, the front spread in crude futures continued to widen to eye-opening levels.

After trading in a fairly wide range from $7.480 to $7.830, March natural gas futures went off the board with a bang on Monday at $7.547, down 20.8 cents from Friday’s close. The April contract, which now assumes the front-month position, was tamer in its action by dropping 10.3 cents to finish the day at $7.703.

Continuing the upward momentum from trading on Tuesday, August natural gas went out with a bang on Wednesday. After starting the day slowly, August reached a high of $7.67 just before expiring at $7.647, up 22.2 cents for the day.

Coming out of the extended July Fourth weekend with a bang, natural gas futures hit the ground running in Tuesday morning trading. The August contract rallied from the opening bell, sending bears into hibernation for fear of being trampled by bulls, who were on a roll.

“Not with a bang, but a whimper” best describes the Senate demise of possible energy legislation this year. The vote was 94 to one Monday night to refuse to bring to a vote a diluted version of energy legislation passed earlier this year in the House.

Quicksilver Resources decided to start 2001 with a bang as thecompany announced last week that it had completed the acquisitionof nearly all of Mercury Exploration Co.’s natural gas processing,gathering, transmission, compression and marketing assets for justover $18 million. The Fort Worth-based company also announced thatit has completed the purchase of the remaining minority interest inits Canadian subsidiary, MGV Energy, for the equivalent of 283,669shares of Quicksilver common stock.

Duke Energy Field Services (DEFS) finished off 2000 with a bangby completing three year-end asset transactions. First, the companyfinalized the $91 million sale of natural gas liquid (NGL) pipelineassets to TEPPCO Crude Pipeline, L.P., then it completed thepurchase of certain natural gas pipeline assets from El Paso FieldServices in two separate deals for an undisclosed sum.