Beating

Branching out into other markets while also beating its chief rival to the punch, the New York Mercantile Exchange said it was introducing six new soft commodity futures contracts on the Nymex ClearPort clearing and trading platform at 6 p.m. EST Wednesday for a Dec. 21 trade date. The exchange said it anticipates listing the contracts on Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s Globex electronic platform by the end of January 2007.

The long, difficult battle for the shares of Canadian Southern Petroleum is finally nearing an end, with white knight Canadian Oil Sands Trust beating out hostile takeover bids by Petro-Canada and Canadian Superior and obtaining 65% of the company’s outstanding shares.

The House last Thursday passed by a wide margin far-reaching energy legislation after beating off attempts by Democrats to expunge provisions that award FERC sole authority over the siting of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, offer oil and gas producers royalty relief, open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to exploration and production activities, and provide manufacturers of the gasoline addition methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) liability protection from lawsuits for groundwater contamination. The Republican-crafted bill was a major victory for President Bush, who has backed drilling in ANWR as part of his national energy policy.

ChevronTexaco Corp. set new records in the fourth quarter, nearly doubling net income from a year ago and beating analyst expectations. However, natural gas and oil output fell 9% globally, and most of the losses were blamed on U.S. asset sales and Hurricane Ivan shut-ins.

Despite the beating taken by Williams in the second quarter with a reported net loss of $18.2 million, (loss of 3 cents per share) compared with net income of $269.7 million, or 46 cents/share in 2Q2003, ongoing results and recent positive comments from credit rating agencies indicate the company is turning the corner. WMB shares gained nearly 2% Thursday to $11.98 on a favorable outlook from company officials.

Despite the beating taken by Williams in the second quarter with a reported net loss of $18.2 million, (loss of 3 cents per share) compared with net income of $269.7 million, or 46 cents/share in 2Q2003, ongoing results and recent positive comments from credit rating agencies indicate the company is turning the corner. WMB shares gained nearly 2% Thursday to $11.98 on a favorable outlook from company officials.

Rumors of a possible Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry, credit ratings downgrades and dire analyst forecasts pummeled El Paso Corp.’s share price on Wednesday, the day after the Houston-based company revised its proved oil and gas reserves downward by 41%. By market’s close, El Paso shares had fallen more than 17%, down $1.55 to stand at $7.26.

With its coalbed methane production beating even its own estimates, Quicksilver Resources Inc. reported third quarter 2003 net income of $5.2 million ($0.23/share) on revenues of $33.5 million, marking a significant increase over third quarter 2002 net income of $3.6 million ($0.18/share) on revenues of $30.3 million.

With its coal bed methane production beating even its own estimates, Quicksilver Resources Inc. Monday reported third quarter 2003 net income of $5.2 million ($0.23/share) on revenues of $33.5 million, marking a fairly significant increase over third quarter 2002 net income of $3.6 million ($0.18/share) on revenues of $30.3 million.