Hard

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin told legislators in his State of the State Address on Wednesday that he would intensify efforts to attract an ethane cracker to the state.

The House and Senate have reached a hard-fought agreement on pipeline safety legislation (HR 2845), setting the stage for Congress to pass the bill before it adjourns for the year, the leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee said Thursday.

The House and Senate have reached a hard-fought agreement on pipeline safety legislation, the leaders of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee said Thursday.

October natural gas fell hard Friday in a sympathetic move with free-falling equity and oil markets. October lost 17.8 cents to $3.872 and November retreated 17.6 cents to $3.990. October crude oil fared as poorly, losing $2.48 to $86.45/bbl.

The shift to shales — and the rise in oil prices — has lifted the domestic rig count close to 20-year highs and shifted the landscape, helped several states join Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana in the chase for natural gas and oil production, according to Headwaters Economics.

Consensus was hard to find among natural gas cash market traders Monday as the recent trend of squirrelly back-and-forth futures trading left cash points all over the board for delivery on Tuesday. Most regions saw a healthy mix of gains and losses on Monday, with the exception of the Rockies and the West Coast, which were uniformly higher.

June natural gas futures gained ground as traders covered short positions prior to both the June contract expiration and the release of government inventory figures. At the closing bell June natural gas had risen 3.4 cents to $4.379 and July had gained 3.2 cents to $4.423. July crude oil jumped $1.73 to $101.32/bbl.

June natural gas futures fell hard Thursday as a double whammy of a moderately negative inventory report combined with a broad market downdraft in equities and other commodity markets to pummel prices. At the close June had fallen 31.6 cents to $4.261 and July was similarly lower by 31.3 cents to $4.331.

As a hard-core group of concerned consumers from the San Francisco Bay Area suburbs continues to allege health hazards from smart meters, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) last Thursday proposed a radio wave-free option for customers who are convinced that radio frequencies produced in the meters cause serious health problems. PG&E proposes to simply turn off the radios in the smart meters for customers requesting it.