Characteristics

In separate announcements, Gulfport Energy Corp. and Seneca Resources Corp. reported that they are achieving encouraging production results from some of the first horizontal wells drilled in the Utica Shale.

The cash market is displaying one of its quirkier characteristics. After rising strongly at all but one point Monday in anticipation of significantly colder temperatures approaching later in the week to much of the nation’s midsection, prices fell at a large majority of locations Tuesday, even as the heating load-boosting conditions began to arrive.

July natural gas futures fell in active trading Monday as traders viewed the market as not having sufficient trending characteristics and others were unmoved by early heat. At the close July had fallen 11.1 cents to $4.646 and August had dropped 11.1 cents as well to $4.678. July crude oil tumbled $1.99 to $97.30/bbl.

As state regulators continue to study a possible connection between drilling waste disposal wells in Arkansas’s Fayetteville Shale and a flurry of minor earthquakes in the area, the tremors continue unabated, including a 4.7-magnitude earthquake Sunday night and at least 19 measurable earthquakes on Monday.

The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission (AOGC) has extended a moratorium on the drilling of new disposal wells in the Fayetteville Shale by six months while it collects data to determine whether disposal activities contributed to hundreds of small earthquakes in the area.

Houston-based Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. plans to spend a good chunk of its 2011 drilling and operational budget not far from home — in the Eagle Ford Shale play of South Texas. In outlining recent drilling results there the company emphasized that it’s learning as it goes.

Petrohawk Energy Corp. has sold its natural gas assets in the Fayetteville Shale to XTO Energy Inc., a subsidiary of ExxonMobil Corp., for $575 million, the company said. The deal puts ExxonMobil at No. 2 in the Fayetteville leaseholder pack.

Flat to modestly softer numbers were the hallmark of Wednesday’s cash market as the price-supporting characteristics of this week’s snowstorms in the Northeast and Midwest continued to wane. However, gains of up 18 cents were noted at some Northeast citygates.