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The spate of colder weather in the Midwest and Northeast that had generated upticks at nearly all points in the previous two days began to lose its price-boosting ability Thursday. Only the Northeast, where high temperatures are predicted to stay at the freezing level or below Friday and into the weekend, continued to see substantially higher prices Thursday. Except for small gains at a couple of scattered non-Northeast points, the rest of the market was flat to just a tad softer.

Using the extra money expected to be generated by planned asset sales in Ecuador and the Gulf of Mexico this year, EnCana Corp. plans to double the size of its potential stock buyback to 10% from 5%.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. generated its highest reported earnings ever in the second quarter on robust energy prices and record oil and natural gas production. The Los Angeles-based producer earned $581 million ($1.48/share), compared with $374 million (98 cents/share) in 2Q2003. Production averaged 574,000 boe/d in the quarter, 6% higher than a year ago.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said that 91 parcels of federal land generated a total revenue of $464,222 through a competitive auction of oil and gas leases conducted on Sept. 25 in Springfield, VA.

The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said that 91 parcels of Federal land generated a total revenue of $464,222 through a competitive auction of oil and gas leases conducted on Sept. 25 in Springfield, VA.

Houston-based Cheniere Energy Inc. said its Exploration Group generated, captured and sold 16 prospects on 7,000 acres to a variety of industry partners last year. Cheniere received up-front payments along with retained overrides and carried working interests with no obligation for drilling and development costs. Seven of these prospects were drilled during 2002 resulting in five discoveries. One development well was also drilled successfully in 2002. At year-end, Cheniere’s net reserves from these successful prospects were 2.5 Bcfe, of which 1.3 Bcfe was classified as proved and 1.2 Bcfe as probable. Value of the proved reserves was $5.1 million, and for the combined proved and probable reserves it was $9.4 million. Since the beginning of 2003, Cheniere’s partners have drilled three development wells, adding 0.5 Bcfe of net proved reserves, bringing Cheniere’s total proved and probable reserves to 3.0 Bcfe to date. Cheniere’s partners are planning to drill an additional development well and eight exploratory wells on Cheniere prospects during the year. Cheniere affiliate Gryphon Exploration Co., in which Cheniere owns a 9.3% interest and Warburg Pincus the balance, drilled nine wells in 2002 and had five discoveries. At year-end, Gryphon had proved reserves of 29.7 Bcfe and probable reserves of 9.2 Bcfe. Value of the proved reserves was $106.9 million, and for the combined proved and probable reserves it was $138.8 million. Gryphon expects to drill 14 exploratory wells and three to four development wells in 2003. Its daily production at year-end was 20 MMcfe/day and is expected to rise to 35 MMcfe by the end of the first quarter.

The first battle over covering the expense of excess capacity generated by the onset of competition in the Canadian natural gas delivery grid has been won by TransCanada PipeLines Ltd., but the war is far from over. The National Energy Board (NEB) rejected a salvo of proposals to make TransCanada absorb half the costs of empty space in its system, setting the stage for toll increases on the remaining customers, with the amounts to be determined by another case now developing. However, the board also declared that its decision to uphold the status quo is temporary.

The amount of electric power generated from existing nuclear plants is likely to increase in the coming years as a result of higher capacity factors and plant uprates, according to Corbin McNeill Jr., co-CEO of Exelon Corp. But the executive also believes that there are a whole host of antiquated legislative and regulatory requirements currently facing the nuclear power industry that need to be overhauled, given the likelihood that future nuclear plants will be operating in a deregulated environment.

Heavy air conditioning load and a tightening of supplyavailability not only generated a late rebound in bidweek pricesFriday but also pushed up last-of-May and early June aftermarketnumbers in nearly all Eastern, Gulf Coast and Midcontinent/Midwestmarkets. Waha and Permian Basin gas, supported by Texas andMidcontinent cooling demand, also was rising above index levels.But in the generally cool West, weekend and 1st-of-month swingprices tended to go down by a few cents.