Building

With storage building and natural gas prices no longer surging, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co. Inc. (FBR) joined a growing chorus of energy analysts in trimming its forecast for U.S. gas prices for the next two years to reflect the “impending flood of shale gas.”

Building on FERC’s recent actions to improve competition in the secondary market for pipeline capacity, the executive committee of the North American Energy Standards Board’s (NAESB) Wholesale Gas Quadrant voted out a protocol Wednesday for using the differentials between natural gas commodity price index points to price short-term released capacity.

Building on FERC’s recent actions to improve competition in the secondary market for pipeline capacity, the executive committee of the North American Energy Standards Board’s (NAESB) Wholesale Gas Quadrant voted out a protocol Wednesday for using the differentials between natural gas commodity price index points to price short-term released capacity.

Building up its Louisiana natural gas storage assets, Cardinal Gas Storage Partners LLC has acquired two storage development projects from CenterPoint Energy Gas Transmission Co. (CEGT) an indirect, wholly owned interstate natural gas pipeline subsidiary of CenterPoint Energy Inc., for an undisclosed price.

Building on the downward momentum created Thursday with a stout natural gas storage injection and flying in the face of surging crude prices, June natural gas futures on Friday threatened to break below $11 as the contract plunged lower. The prompt-month contract recorded a low of $11.080 before inching higher to close at $11.094, down 30.5 cents from Thursday and 44.3 cents lower than the previous week’s finish.

Williams is building its position in the Piceance Basin of Colorado, its most prolific natural gas play, in a $285 million cash agreement with SandRidge Energy and other parties. The transaction is expected to close by the end of June.

Williams is building its position in the Piceance Basin, its most prolific natural gas play, in a $285 million cash agreement with SandRidge Energy and other parties. The transaction is expected to close by the end of June.

The market found enough cooling load building in the southern tier of U.S. states and enough residual cold weather in northern market areas and the western half of Canada to post increases at all but two points Thursday. There were also indications of strong storage buying, and the 17.4-cent advance by May futures Wednesday gave an extra boost to Thursday’s cash prices.

BP plc replaced 112% of its annual production in 2007, building its proved reserves of oil and gas to 17.8 billion boe, the company reported Wednesday. It also added about 2.4 billion new barrels to its nonproved resource base, which now stands at 42.1 billion boe.