Furious

A national organization that supports oil and gas leaseholders is furious that Pennsylvania legislators passed a bill that its members claim would allow forced pooling in the state. They are urging people to contact Gov. Tom Corbett to get a veto.

November natural gas staged a furious end-of-week rally Friday as traders factored in cooler weather and holders of short positions may have figured that the outlook couldn’t get much better and decided to cover. November jumped 17.2 cents to $3.703 and December rose 14.6 cents to $3.960. November crude oil surged $2.57 to $86.42/bbl.

After enduring a fast and furious first three days of trading for the week that resulted in a $1.432 drop, traders appeared to seize the opportunity on Thursday and Friday to expand one of the last weekends of the summer. Following a slow Thursday, the activity Friday once again was lethargic as the September natural gas futures contract closed at $5.523, down 9.9 cents on the day, and $1.487 lower than the previous Friday’s close.

Natural gas futures were trading fast and furious Wednesday as traders worked to get their respective positions in order ahead of the October contract going off of the board. As a result, October natural gas plummeted to $4.070 — marking a new low for the extended move — before expiring at $4.201, down 32.5 cents on the day.

The once Titanic-like TXU Corp. was bailing water at a furious pace Monday morning, after a devastating collision with European power markets. By 9 a.m., it had squeezed 80% from its once untouchable quarterly dividend, and cast adrift its European subsidiaries, sinking a plan to infuse $700 million in equity in operations, eliminating them from a cross-default provision on its $500 million bank facility and ultimately deciding that “all portions” of the European business are up for sale.

Drilling has picked up to a frenzied pace as active natural gasrig numbers continue to skyrocket in the United States and Canada.Rotary rigs drilling int he United States soared by 20 last week toa new record of 736 active gas drilling rigs, according to BakerHughes’ Rig Count report. Currently there are 235 more domesticrigs actively drilling than at the same time last year.

Amid confirmation that volumes of exports to the United Statesare on the rise and confident predictions that prices will staystrong, Canadian natural gas drilling is accelerating rapidly. Thenumber of gas-well completions in western Canada is expected to hitat least 8,200 next year.

Amid confirmation that volumes of exports to the United Statesare on the rise and confident predictions that prices will staystrong, Canadian natural gas drilling is accelerating rapidly. Thenumber of gas-well completions in western Canada is expected to hitat least 8,200 next year.

The furious upward rush of swing cash prices finally ran out ofsteam Tuesday, leaving most of the market in a consolidation andstabilization mode. Except for a nickel rise in Transco’s Zone6-NYC pool and milder increases on several Midcontinent pipes, flatnumbers were the order of the day at nearly all eastern points.Although the Midwest and Northeast market areas had cooled off abit since Monday, forecasts for a heat wave to re-intensify laterthis week kept prices from retreating, a marketer said.