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Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR), best known for its coal and land management operations, said Tuesday it is buying natural gas gathering and processing assets in Oklahoma and Texas from Cantera Resources Holdings LLC, a portfolio company of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, for $191 million in cash.

Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR), best known for its coal and land management operations, said Tuesday it is buying natural gas gathering and processing assets in Oklahoma and Texas from Cantera Resources Holdings LLC, a portfolio company of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, for $191 million in cash.

Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP (PVR), best known for its coal and land management operations, said Tuesday it is buying natural gas gathering and processing assets in Oklahoma and Texas from Cantera Resources Holdings LLC, a portfolio company of Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, for $191 million in cash.

XTO Energy’s operations chief said Wednesday that the key to his company’s U.S.-based natural gas production success is not keyed toward exploring for new properties, but instead concentrated on acquiring and exploiting assets that other producers don’t want.

XTO Energy’s operations chief said Wednesday that the key to his company’s U.S.-based natural gas production success is not keyed toward exploring for new properties,but instead concentrated on acquiring and exploiting assets that other producers don’t want.

The bearish storage report Thursday and associated screen decline, along with forecasts of flagging weather-related demand and the weekend’s typical dropoff in industrial load, had traders anticipating a soft market Friday, and that’s exactly what they got.

Everyone from President George W. Bush on down who is touting a hydrogen-based energy future is undecided about how it will be accomplished, but natural gas is always part of the equation, and that may have to change, according to an ExxonMobil official.

Despite the release of seemingly neutral storage data (46 Bcf withdrawal), the natural gas futures market turned lower Thursday as traders decided to test the bottom end of the market’s recent trading band. Although the selling was steady throughout the session, the downward momentum was not enough to demote spot month prices below support at $5.60. April closed for the session at $5.631, down 9.1 cents for the day.

Last year was one of the best ever for energy industry fundamentals, and investors’ growing recognition of commodity price sustainability supports the theory that 2004 will be even better, with natural gas prices forecast of $5.50/Mcf, according to Raymond James analysts.