Fairly

Natural gas figures prominently in Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s 19-page energy and environment message to Michiganders and their lawmakers, which was released last week. It includes many ideas for natural gas, oil, power generation and energy efficiency, but before much can happen, guidance from the federal government is needed, he said.

Public opinion of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) among voters in New York State has shifted in favor of the practice, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

A quartet of nominees for positions at FERC, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the Interior Department appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday to answer questions about hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and other issues as part of their confirmation process.

Although there was only a fairly small return of heat in the Northeast Monday and some areas there were already due to start seeing high temperatures slacken again a few degrees Tuesday, Northeast citygates recorded most of the largest upticks of up to about 35 cents. One source suggested that Monday’s moderate temperature upticks may have spurred a little extra buying by Northeast traders to resolve unexpected Monday imbalances.

There didn’t seem to be enough weather-based demand — for either heating or cooling — to justify it, but prices were up fairly strongly across the board Monday. The cash market did derive minor support from the previous Friday’s 5.2-cent uptick by June futures and the restoration of industrial load from its usual weekend decline.

April began Friday with fairly heavy snowfalls in upper New England, the eastern Midwest and even parts of the Pacific Northwest, according to The Weather Channel (TWC). But with warming trends due over the weekend, the belief that wintry weather was on its last legs except for remaining subfreezing patches in Canada resulted in softness being slightly dominant in a mixed cash market that was mostly flat or close to it.

Although Pennsylvania does not have severance tax on natural gas production, the state is starting to collect more tax revenues from counties with significant Marcellus Shale development activity than from counties without it, according to a new report from Penn State University.

For a change Monday’s trading featured most Northeast locations taking big dives while prices recorded fairly strong increases at a large majority of other points. Most sections of the North American market can expect to endure some severe winter weather this week.

With traders not interested in making waves ahead of fresh inventory news Thursday, natural gas futures action was fairly quiet on Wednesday as the February contract traveled a slim range of just more than a dime before closing the regular session at $4.531, up a nickel from Tuesday’s finish.