Jumps

Overall drilling in U.S. shale basins has increased 33% from a year ago, led by 100-200% jumps in oil- and liquids-rich natural gas plays such as the Niobrara in Colorado and southern Wyoming (209%), the Eagle Ford in South Texas (105%) and the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana (110%), according to a shale basin rig count compiled by NGI’s Shale Daily.

Overall drilling in U.S. shale basins has increased 38% from a year ago, led by 100-200% jumps in oil- and liquids-rich natural gas plays such as the Niobrara in Colorado and southern Wyoming (200%), the Eagle Ford in South Texas (126%) and the Bakken in North Dakota and Montana (105%), according to a shale basin rig count compiled by NGI’s Shale Daily.

Prices continued to spike in the Northeast Wednesday, with a few other regional citygates joining Transco Zone 6-New York in jumps of about a dollar or more and Texas Eastern M-3 skyrocketing by more than $2. However, this week’s bullishness showed signs of stalling, with Gulf Coast numbers generally only a few cents both up and down from flat and markets in the Midcontinent/Midwest and West mostly on the moderately softer side.

This week’s market started out much like the previous one — with seemingly not enough cold weather overall to justify big price jumps, but traders managed to find enough demand anyway to drive spikes that occasionally reached about a dollar or more Monday.

A marketer had correctly predicted Tuesday that futures strength that day would jump-start a rally in the overall cash market Wednesday. But the big jumps at nearly all points Wednesday seemed out of proportion to the previous day’s 16.1-cent Nymex gain, especially when no major heat waves or tropical storm concerns were in sight.

The stock of Warren Resources, an independent energy company with operations mainly in Rocky Mountain coalbed methane, rose above $9 Friday after its initial public offering of 9.5 million shares was priced Thursday to start at $7.50.

A day after Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. closed a deal that doubles its oil and gas assets in New Mexico, the producer reported a 457% increase in second quarter net income — $23.2 million (33 cents/share), compared with $4.2 million (6 cents) in 2Q2003.

While the April futures contract exited quietly on Monday, the May contract began its prompt-month run Tuesday like a rock band, jumping 26.4 cents on the day to close at $5.746. After notching a high of $5.775 at 12:37 p.m. ET, the May contract stayed above $5.70, moving up to test the $5.77 mark a number of other times during the afternoon.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) Monday became the fourth lawmaker to call for either federal investigations or Capitol Hill hearings into the rapid run-up in prices for natural gas since late November.