Lately

Natural gas prices have been rallying a bit lately, and stocks “tend to correlate” with changes in the forward curve, but the stock price rally hasn’t been accompanied by a gain in the strip price, Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH) analysts said in a note to clients.

Natural gas-weighted Quicksilver Resources Inc., which has seen its shares trading lately at less than one-third of their 52-week high, last week announced a capital budget and drilling plan intended to hold the fort while it transitions to oil/liquids and shops for joint venture (JV) partners in the Horn River Basin and in West Texas.

Natural gas-weighted Quicksilver Resources Inc., which has seen its shares trading lately at less than one-third of their 52-week high, Tuesday announced a capital budget and drilling plan intended to hold the fort while it transitions to oil/liquids and shops for joint venture (JV) partners in the Horn River Basin and in West Texas.

North America’s natural gas producers lately have been taking a licking but Encana Corp. is succeeding by continuing to optimize its portfolio and its operations, an executive said last week.

North America’s natural gas producers lately have been taking a licking but Encana Corp. is succeeding by continuing to optimize its portfolio and its operations, an executive said this week.

Many observers have been scratching their heads lately over the inability of the futures and cash markets to show significant declines despite overwhelming fundamental reasons to do so. There’s been very little cold weather to speak of this heating season and gas storage levels are at record highs with 37% more gas in storage than at the same time last year, yet January gas futures remained in the mid $2.60s on Tuesday, down only 2.9 cents on the day to $2.657.

Although it has been overshadowed lately by the boomingproduction in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, theRaton Basin in southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexicohas nearly doubled its coal-bed methane production over the pasttwo years. As a result, Colorado Interstate Gas is planning to beefup its gas transportation infrastructure in the basin and increasetakeaway capacity by 85,000 Dth/d to 200,000 Dth/d starting inSeptember 2001.

Although it has been overshadowed lately by the boomingproduction in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, theRaton Basin in southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexicohas nearly doubled its coal-bed methane production over the pasttwo years. As a result, Colorado Interstate Gas is planning to beefup its gas transportation facilities and increase basin takeawaycapacity by 85,000 Dth/d to 200,000 Dth/d starting in September2001.

Wednesday afternoons have been interesting times lately in thenatural gas pit at Nymex and yesterday was no exception. Afterspiking as much as 20 cents higher on storage-hype-related buying,the June contract spiraled lower after the report was released. TheJuly contract finished at $4.356, just 0.2-cents above Tuesday’sclose. According to the American Gas Association, 56 Bcf wasinjected into underground storage facilities last week, bringingtotal working gas to 1,274 Bcf or 429 Bcf less than at the sametime last year.