Impressive

Summer heat, which has so far been “more impressive and widespread than anticipated,” will continue to blanket most of the country into the autumn, according to forecasters at Andover, MA-based WSI Corp., who also reaffirmed their prediction of an “active-normal” 2011 Atlantic hurricane season.

Summer heat, which has so far been “more impressive and widespread than anticipated,” will continue to blanket most of the country in August and into the autumn, according to forecasters at Andover, MA-based WSI Corp.

Despite production rates that would have been considered impressive under different circumstances, Penn Virginia Corp. (PVA) on Tuesday expressed disappointment in results from its first three horizontal wells on its Marcellus Shale leasehold in Pennsylvania.

June natural gas futures put on an impressive show of strength Monday, but neither short-term traders nor analysts who follow the complexities of technical wave analysis are ready to say the bear has gone into hibernation. In active trading June futures rose 15.5 cents to $4.170 and July added 14.7 cents to $4.271. June crude oil rose $1.69 to $76.80/bbl and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 405 points to 10,785.

A previously divided cash market came together for an impressive show of unity Tuesday as NGPL’s TexOk zone was the only point to show a decline (a little less than a dime). Prices were flat to higher in the rest of the market, deriving support from the previous day’s increase of 13.7 cents by October futures and further indications that ongoing outages of significant amounts of Gulf of Mexico (GOM) supplies are having more of a price impact as they continue to accumulate.

Backed by cold forecasts for the rest of February and surging petroleum prices, the March natural gas futures contract continued their recent impressive show of strength Wednesday by reaching a high of $9.110 on the day before retreating. The prompt-month contract recorded a low of $8.910 before settling at $8.965, down 1.2 cents from Tuesday’s close.

Calgary pipeline operator Enbridge Inc. posted impressive quarterly results, but it said that to finance some of the massive pipe projects planned over the coming four years, it may sell some of its assets, in whole or in part, rather than issue common shares.

Monday’s 37.4-cent advance by October futures may have looked impressive, but it proved to be largely ineffective in sustaining cash market firmness. Mixed pricing Tuesday that stayed close to flat in many instances but leaned mostly to the downside dominated in non-Rockies markets. Meanwhile, the Rockies were beginning to recover from Monday’s price massacre with fairly substantial increases, but still were averaging less than a dollar.

After settling above the key $8 level on Thursday, June natural gas futures on Friday managed to put in an impressive $8.230 high, but ultimately crashed lower to close out the week at $7.944, down 13.1 cents on the day. However, the close was 4.5 cents higher than the previous Friday’s close, confirming that the market is in fact inching higher.