Cash

Cash prices on average fell 14 cents Tuesday for Wednesday delivery with the Northeast leading the charge lower. Losses were widespread and occurred at all trading points. The market is being forced to take on differing weather forecasts with some anticipating a widespread cold carrying all the way to the East Coast, while others are more mild. At the close, February was 4.8 cents lower at $3.218 and March had lost 4.7 cents to $3.234. February crude oil shed 4 cents to $93.15/bbl.

Cash prices tumbled an average of about a half-dollar Wednesday, led by free-falling multi-dollar drops in New England and other eastern and Northeast points. If those extra-volatile points are removed from the calculations, the overall average drop was of nearly a quarter.

Natural gas cash prices soared Friday following a post-Christmas snow storm that dropped more than a foot of snow on large swaths of the Northeast. A handful of locations in the region even soared north of $10/MMBtu as pipelines were running at capacity with even more cold forecasted in the week ahead.

The cash market overall averaged 9 cents higher Friday as eastern portions of the country were still in the crosshairs of a major storm that traversed the country earlier in the week. The advance was broad and led by New England locations, and the isolated points that did show losses endured setbacks of a couple of pennies or less. January futures fell 1.1 cents to $3.451, and February gave up 1.3 cents to $3.482. February crude oil shed $1.47 to $88.66/bbl.

Dominion and Caiman Energy II LLC on Thursday said they are forming Blue Racer Midstream LLC, a $1.5 billion joint venture (JV) that would provide midstream services to natural gas producers operating in the Utica Shale in Ohio and portions of Pennsylvania.

Cash prices advanced 8 cents on average Thursday as a winter storm that began in the West and Rockies marched through the Great Plains and into the Great Lakes. Only a few Northeast points showed declines.

Cash market prices fell just over a nickel on average Wednesday as weakness at Northeast points led a broad retreat. Natural gas futures were even softer. At the close January futures had fallen 9.8 cents to $3.320 and February sank 8.9 cents to $3.366. January crude oil added $1.58 to $89.51/bbl.

Norway’s Statoil ASA on Wednesday said it has snapped up another 70,000 net acres in liquids-rich areas of the Marcellus Shale for $590 million in cash. The portfolio additions, which give the producer full or joint partnership in close to 750,000 net acres in the play, are spread across West Virginia and Ohio.

NFR Energy LLC has closed two private deals worth a combined $736 million to acquire assets in the Anadarko Basin and Eagle Ford Shale. The company also announced that First Reserve Corp. has increased its interest in the parent company, NFR Holdings LLC, to 99.7% and NFR is to be renamed Sabine Oil & Gas LLC.