Guidance

The Pelican State has another oil and gas shale play in the works. Known as the Lower Smackover Brown Dense, the play spans portions of North Louisiana and southern Arkansas.

Driven by record natural gas output from core holdings in the Pinedale Anticline of Wyoming and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, Ultra Petroleum Corp. on Wednesday reported quarterly profit numbers that beat Wall Street’s expectations. The Houston producer also disclosed that it established a third core area, almost 100,000 net acres in the liquids-prone Niobrara formation of the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin of Colorado.

Kodiak Oil & Gas Corp. has agreed to acquire from an undisclosed private seller Bakken/Three Forks leasehold and producing properties in the Williston Basin for about $85.5 million, the company said Monday.

Enthusiasm for uncovering oil deposits in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas hasn’t waned at El Paso Corp. In fact, the company likely will move more rigs into its leasehold as the year progresses, CEO Doug Foshee said Thursday.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) Tuesday said it supported the creation of a registry by the Groundwater Protection Council (GWPC) and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) for the voluntary disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Williams Partners LP grabbed more business in the Marcellus Shale late Thursday after agreeing to pay Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. $150 million for 75 miles of gathering pipelines and two compressor stations in Susquehanna County, PA.

Despite negative guidance coming from the screen’s 12.8-cent decline in December natural gas futures Friday, a vast majority of cash points traded Monday for Tuesday delivery moved higher — from a few cents to just more than a dime.

With no guidance coming from Tuesday’s neutral screen action, cash market traders were left to their own devices on Wednesday. Some Midwest averages and almost all western averages continued Tuesday’s run higher with additions of a few pennies to a little more than 15 cents, while the rest of the country saw small pullbacks of up to a nickel.

Potential Gulf storm, heat in southern U.S. slightly outweigh negative screen guidance.