Loss

April natural gas futures suffered a double-digit loss Tuesday as bearish views on the market — which ranged from robust selling by short-term traders to abundant production — trumped those seeing a tighter storage dynamic firming prices. At the close April futures had retreated 16.4 cents to $3.873 and May natural gas had fallen 16.0 cents to $3.950. April crude oil surged $2.66 to $99.63/bbl as concern surfaced that Libyan unrest would spread to Saudi Arabia and Iran.

In recognition of the “value gap” between oil and natural gas prices, Chesapeake Energy Corp. will continue to direct a big chunk of its technological and leasehold acquisition expertise to “identify, secure and commercialize” new unconventional liquids-rich plays, CEO Aubrey McClendon said Wednesday.

Despite reporting a $16.3 million net loss for 2010, Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. believes that recent and pending acquisitions could help the company more than triple production, allowing it to compete with bigger companies in three major shale plays.

Demand exceeding capacity has resulted in a linepack loss downstream of Stations 245 and 321, Tennessee said, prompting it to issue Critical Day 1 OFOs for all LMS-PA Balancing Parities in Zones 5 and 6 effective Sunday. The OFOs will be in addition to Action Alerts implemented Friday in those zones along with one in Zone 4, Tennessee said.

Marcellus Shale gas already is displacing pipeline flows from the west, an energy analyst said Tuesday at the Argus Marcellus Shale Gas Summit 2010 in Houston.

Flat numbers at Tennessee Zone 6 and the PG&E citygate and about a nickel loss at Dracut were the only exceptions to fairly strong price gains Wednesday everywhere else in the market. Temperatures were staying fairly mild across the southern third of the United States, but with lows in the 30s and 40s forecast for Thursday north of there into Canada, it was obvious that heating demand is starting to play an increasing role in the gas price equation.

For a market lacking weather-based load for the most part, no significant tropical storm activity, a prior-day futures loss of 10.4 cents and another big addition to already-abundant storage inventories anticipated, it seems that softness would be paramount. But prices still mostly saw small increases anyway.

Production increases and a 22% increase in oil and gas revenues helped Newfield Exploration Co. report net income of $113 million (86 cents/share) in 4Q2009 compared with a loss of $789 million ($6.09/share) in the year-ago period.

Production increases and a 22% increase in oil and gas revenues helped Newfield Exploration Co. report net income of $113 million (86 cents/share) in 4Q2009 compared with a loss of $789 million ($6.09/share) in the year-ago period.