Fourth

The number of rigs drilling for natural gas in the United States fell by 12 to 919, according to Baker Hughes Dec. 30 rig count. This marks the fourth week of decline for the gas rig count.

Enterprise Products Partners LP’s fourth natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionator at its Mont Belvieu, TX, complex has begun operating ahead of schedule and under budget at its nameplate capacity of 75,000 b/d, the partnership said Tuesday.

Developing Nexen Inc.’s massive shale gas position in northeastern British Columbia (BC) is on the to-do list for 2011, CEO Marvin Romanow said this week.

Natural gas futures bears were still very much in the driver’s seat after the November futures contract on Friday recorded the fourth new low for the downtrend, just in the past week. The front-month contract recorded a low of $3.290 before closing the regular session at $3.332, down 3.6 cents from Thursday and 20.3 cents lower than the previous week’s finish.

Williams Partners LP has ramped up operations on the fourth cryogenic processing train (TXP4) at the Echo Springs natural gas processing plant in Carbon County, WY.

Despite the presence in the central Atlantic of the year’s fourth named storm and a high probability that an area of low pressure off the coast of Africa could form into another tropical cyclone, Andover, MA-based WSI Corp. has for the second time this summer lowered the number of hurricanes in its 2010 Atlantic hurricane forecast.

Pacific Gas and Electric kept a systemwide Stage 2 high-inventory OFO going into at least its fourth day Saturday but loosened the tolerance for positive daily imbalances slightly from 5% to 8%.

After failing to break through resistance at $5.200 for a fourth consecutive trading session, the July natural gas futures contract dropped 16.5 cents on Friday to close just below $5 at $4.997 as traders took some profits off the table ahead of the weekend. However, the front-month contract increased by 21.6 cents over the previous week’s finish.

Natural gas futures on Friday declined for the fourth consecutive session as the June contract shaved another 7.1 cents to $4.035. For the week the prompt-month contract dropped 27.7 cents, or 6% of its value.