Electronic

A California-based company, which now provides produced water services to several shale producers, on Tuesday said an Encana Corp. subsidiary would be the sole fuel supplier for its new fleet of liquefied natural gas (LNG) trucks, which initially would service Haynesville Shale producers.

Social media that consumers seem to have adopted faster than they originally took to other electronic communications staples — Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and YouTube — were added to Xcel Energy’s utility tool kit as the utility holding company publicly launched its own social media platform Thursday.

Natural gas basis trades reported on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) electronic system do not rise to the level of performing a significant price-discovery function (SPDF), ICE said in objecting to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) proposal to designate 15 natural gas basis contracts as qualifying for SPDF treatment.

Natural gas basis trades reported on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) electronic system do not rise to the level of performing a significant price-discovery function (SPDF), ICE said in objecting to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) proposal to designate 15 natural gas basis contracts as qualifying for SPDF treatment.

October natural gas futures continued to retreat in active trading Monday. The October contract opened sharply lower at $2.935 in electronic Globex trading and traders said $3 would be a formidable trading barrier to further advances. Spread trading was active and trend followers say the market has to make a sizeable advance before they would entertain switching from a bearish to neutral outlook. At the close October futures fell 5.6 cents to $2.977 and November gave up 5.5 cents to $3.998.

New regulations coming to the commodities markets near you are likely to drive more transactions onto electronic trading platforms for clearing and provide the public with more aggregated data on market movements, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) official told the 450 attendees at GasMart 2009 in Chicago. In Washington “there is a significant amount of momentum going into modifying every aspect of the way the OTC markets operate.”

New regulations coming to the commodities markets near you are likely to drive more transactions onto electronic trading platforms for clearing and provide the public with more aggregated data on market movements, a former Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) official told the 450 attendees at GasMart 2009 in Chicago. In Washington “there is a significant amount of momentum going into modifying every aspect of the way the OTC markets operate.”

After plumbing lower price levels in overnight electronic trade and again on Wednesday morning, June natural gas futures made another run at $12 Wednesday afternoon as the contract recorded a high on the day of $11.975 before backing off to expire at $11.916, up 11.5 cents from Tuesday’s finish. July futures, which now assume front-month contract status, put in a high of $12.082 before settling at $11.995, up 7.6 cents from Tuesday’s close.

Traders continued to flush out weakness in the October natural gas futures contract in the overnight Thursday electronic trading session, which left the action on Friday muted. After trading within a thin $5.470 to $5.545 range during Friday’s regular session, the prompt month finished out the week at $5.501, down 14.9 cents on the day but 3.3 cents higher than the previous Friday’s close.