Basis

Cooler temperatures, continuing wide basis spreads and an early jump in near-month futures led many gas cash market observers to expect early Tuesday that it would be another day of daily spot increases, but averages actually ended the day down a few cents in most cases and the tide appeared to be turning on Nymex by the afternoon.

Capping a tumultuous week of trading, the natural gas futures market rose Friday as a wave of weather-related short-covering boosted prices throughout the morning. Only modest softening was seen in light afternoon trading, leaving the November contract to close at $4.767, up 8.1 cents on the day.

A House of Representatives task force, set up on an emergency basis to explore possible actions to shore up failing supplies of natural gas, may consider elimination of the congressional moratoria on oil and gas drilling on the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as a possible remedy, a knowledgeable Capitol Hill aide said last week.

A House of Representatives task force, set up on an emergency basis to explore possible actions to shore up failing supplies of natural gas, may consider elimination of the congressional moratoria on oil and gas drilling on the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) as one of the possible remedies, a Capitol Hill spokeswoman said.

ConocoPhillips’ upstream unit, comprised of crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids production on a boe/d basis, is expected to be near first quarter levels, the company said last week in an interim second quarter report. While the results benefited from a full quarter’s output from Venezuela facilities and new wells coming online in China, the gains were offset by normal seasonal declines in Alaska, Norway and the United Kingdom.

ConocoPhillips’ upstream unit, comprised of crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids production on a boe/d basis, is expected to be near first quarter levels, the company said Wednesday in an interim report. While the results benefited from a full quarter’s output from Venezuela facilities and new wells coming online in China, the gains were offset by normal seasonal declines in Alaska, Norway and the United Kingdom.

The dam burst on an already weakening cash market Friday. Following a record-high storage injection report and the screen’s plunge of just over 60 cents in response Thursday, nobody was surprised to see weekend numbers fall by anywhere from 40 cents to nearly 80 cents. Declines ranging from a little less than half a dollar to 60 cents dominated the market.

Echoing the concerns cited by Duke Energy earlier, scores of West Coast energy suppliers disputed FERC staff’s view that the California market monitoring rules provide the legal backing for the Commission to issue show-cause orders against them and other sellers, threatening the loss of market-based rate authority and/or alleged ill-gotten profits.

Echoing the concerns cited by Duke Energy earlier, scores of West Coast energy suppliers dispute FERC staff’s view that the California market monitoring rules provide the legal backing for the Commission to issue show-cause orders against them and other sellers, threatening the loss of market-based rate authority and/or alleged ill-gotten profits.