Concentrated

Cash prices fell 7 cents on average Thursday as traders ignored a powerful East Coast storm and concentrated on getting deals done before the release of government inventory data.

An interim study committee in the South Dakota state legislature has agreed to pursue as many as eight different bills this year covering oil and natural drilling, including one aimed at hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Noble Energy Inc. has agreed to sell oil and natural gas properties in Kansas, including about 250 producing wells on approximately 14,000 net acres, to an affiliate of Citation Oil & Gas Corp. for $140 million as part of an ongoing divestiture plan, the Houston-based company said Monday.

The spot market showed some signs of returning strength as advances that were concentrated occurred in the West and Northeast outnumbered losses Tuesday, with flat numbers again in vogue. This came a day after a large majority of points softened.

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.

A trio of Bayer AG-owned sites in West Virginia totaling about 1,480 acres would be ideal locations for thermal crackers to process ethane from the state’s Marcellus Shale area, the company said.

There was a slightly increased threat of a tropical storm reaching the Gulf of Mexico, a bit of residual cooling load concentrated in the Texas area, and several spotty patches of overnight cold scattered throughout the northern half of the U.S. and Canada. But the price rebound that had been growing stronger from Tuesday through Wednesday still faltered Thursday.

Gains, concentrated in the Midcontinent, Northeast and much of the West, modestly outnumbered losses elsewhere Monday as heat across the southern third of the U.S. continued to wrestle with relatively moderate conditions to the north for primary market influence. The previous Friday’s 3.5-cent loss by August futures and the return of industrial load after the weekend were other opposing price factors.

Helmerich & Payne Inc. (H&P), whose drilling business is concentrated in the U.S. onshore, said 23 rig contracts were terminated early in just the past month.