Eclipse

Producers’ second quarter earnings continue to eclipse Wall Street forecasts because of higher natural gas and oil prices, but the profits shadow continued reports of lower overall natural gas production in North America. ExxonMobil Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Apache Corp., which all released 2Q earnings Thursday, reported higher production compared to a year ago. However, only Apache reported higher worldwide gas output, and North American gas production was lower for all three.

The frigid January weather that gripped the entire nation, particularly the Northeast, is “diminishing the likelihood” of cumulative heating costs for this heating season finishing below last winter’s high levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook for February.

The frigid January weather that gripped the entire nation, particularly the Northeast, is “diminishing the likelihood” of cumulative heating costs for this heating season finishing below last winter’s high levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook for February.

Canada’s upstream energy sector is on a path to “eclipse” 2000’sdrilling pace, and early indications are that this year will showcontinued strength in gas exploration and production — a goodsign that supply may be on the upswing, according to a report byCambridge Energy Research Associates.

It didn’t take long to eclipse what had been the lowest-everprices for a December date recorded by Daily GPI, and the new lowmarks weren’t even close to the ones seen earlier in the week.Continuing record warmth in the eastern two-thirds of the nationyielded record low gas prices for this time of year. Gulf Coastnumbers were almost a dollar under December indexes only three daysinto the month.