henry hub

Marathon Oil Corp. continued to raise its game in the Eagle Ford Shale during the third quarter, improving drilling times by 20% from a year ago and bringing drilling and completion costs down by 20%. The company still plans to exit the year with net production of about 100,000 boe/d from the South Texas play.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) and the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) will study radioactive materials produced from shale development activities, with the results intended to complement a similar study being performed by state regulators, the groups said.

Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner (CFTC) Bart Chilton, a major proponent of speculative position limits, announced that Tuesday’s meeting will be his last at the agency.

Just days after withdrawing its appeal of a federal court decision that tossed a controversial final rule aimed at limiting speculative trading in the swaps markets, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Tuesday voted to propose new rules in place of the discarded position limits rule.

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) has asked FERC to initiate a pre-filing review of the expansion of its system in Alabama to provide approximately 1.13 Bcf/d of natural gas to meet growing power generation demand in Florida.

Physical natural gas traded Tuesday for Wednesday delivery fell 4 cents on average as higher prices in the Midwest, Northern Plains and Rockies, along with steady California prices were unable to offset $1-plus declines along the Eastern Seaboard. Futures prices staged a modest rebound as noon weather updates called for a healthy dose of cold temperatures by mid-month. At the close December was higher by 2.1 cents to $3.466 and January had gained 2.7 cents to $3.551. December crude oil dropped $1.25 to $93.37/bbl.

The price being paid Monday for Tuesday physical natural gas delivery on average lost 2 cents as major hubs were mixed, but firm pricing on the West Coast and Eastern Seaboard was not able to offset weakness at Gulf and interior locations. At the close of futures trading, December had fallen 6.8 cents to $3.445 and January skidded 6.7 cents tp $3.524. December crude oil added a penny to $94.62/bbl.

For the three trading days ended Oct. 30 physical gas prices fell an average of 12 cents to $3.62, according to NGI’s National Spot Gas Average.

Lone Star NGL LLC has started up the second natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionator at its Mont Belvieu, TX, facility. Lone Star Frac II is a 100,000 b/d fractionator that brings Lone Star’s total fractionation capacity at Mont Belvieu to 200,000 b/d. Lone Star is a joint venture of Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) and Regency Energy Partners LP. The fractionators receive NGLs from several sources, including Lone Star’s west Texas NGL pipelines and ETP’s Justice NGL pipeline. Volumes transported on Lone Star’s pipeline system and the ETP Justice pipeline continue to ramp up as shippers under long-term agreements with Lone Star and ETP increase their production from the Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale, and other producing regions, the companies said.