Highs

With energy prices at historical — and in some cases record highs — relief could be on the way in a few years as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced last week that it will make land available for oil and natural gas leasing in the resource-rich northeast and northwest portions of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A).

With energy prices at historical — and in some cases record highs — relief could be on the way in a few years as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced Wednesday that it will make land available for oil and natural gas leasing in the resource-rich northeast and northwest portions of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPR-A).

Costs to construct new oil and natural gas facilities have nearly doubled since 2005 and have surged to record highs, according to the IHS/Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) Upstream Capital Costs Index (UCCI).

Costs to construct new oil and natural gas facilities have nearly doubled since 2005 and surged to record highs, according to the IHS/Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) Upstream Capital Costs Index (UCCI).

Record cash flows pushed deal activity in the oil and gas industry to levels rivaling the mega merger highs of 1998, according to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Gas deals dominated the list of the largest transactions in 2006, with six out of the eight upstream deals in the top 10 deal list. This was in contrast to the previous year when only two deals in the top 10 of all deals and four of the top 10 of upstream deals were gas-dominated.

Record cash flows pushed deal activity in the oil and gas industry to levels rivaling the mega merger highs of 1998, according to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Gas deals dominated the list of the largest transactions in 2006, with six out of the eight upstream deals in the top 10 deal list. This was in contrast to the previous year when only two deals in the top 10 of all deals and four of the top 10 of upstream deals were gas-dominated.

Coming as the antithesis to Monday’s humdrum directionless trading action, Tuesday saw natural gas futures traders push the May contract to new highs for the move at $7.930 before closing out the regular session at $7.869, up 32.3 cents from Monday.

Forecasts of freezing highs Friday failed to keep Northeast citygates from measuring their declines in triple digits as they led across the board price softening Thursday. With spring-like conditions already established in the South and nonmountainous sections of the West, and a still-chilly Midwest continuing a warming trend, light heating load was the chief instigator of Thursday’s drops.

With crude futures continuing to make new highs as violence in the Middle East escalated, natural gas futures also climbed Friday as August natural gas closed out the week on a strong note. Supported by significant heat in a number of U.S. regions, prompt month natural gas ended up settling at $6.347, up 21.8 cents on the day and 82.4 cents higher than the previous week.