Lower

Natural gas production in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Other States category, which includes Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia — and, with them, some of the nation’s booming shale plays — reached 26.37 Bcf/d in July, compared with 26.13 Bcf/d in June and 22.67 Bcf/d in July 2012, EIA said Monday.

Physical natural gas for delivery Thursday fell on average 4 cents overall on Wednesday, with broad weakness across most trading points. Few points made it into the black, with Marcellus locations recording rebounds just shy of a dollar one day after reaching all-time lows.

October natural gas is expected to open 5 cents lower Monday morning at $3.63 as traders assess a soft fundamental outlook and tropical threats diminish. Overnight oil markets plunged.

Environmental groups, the Edison Electric Institute and large natural gas end-users were quick to commend the Senate’s confirmation Thursday of Gina McCarthy as head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but oil and natural gas companies were apparently following the rule, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

With a flat U.S. horizontal rig count and a lower-priced backlog still to be worked through, the oilfield services sector didn’t have a lot of “classic” catalysts to propel them in 2Q2013, according to a preview by Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH).

The capital markets for U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies “appear wide open,” with most of the available funds likely to target onshore oil instead of natural gas through 2014, Barclays Capital analysts said on Wednesday.

Denver-based SM Energy Co. is marketing all of its properties in the Anadarko Basin, including its Granite Wash interests. The sale of the gas-weighted assets is part of normal high-grading activities, the company said Wednesday. Proceeds could be spent in the Permian Basin or in the Eagle Ford Shale, analysts speculated Wednesday.

In another major victory for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, Thursday upheld a lower court’s decision that found the agency did not act illegally in promulgating the Dodd-Frank regulations.

A coalition of five energy associations Friday urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) not to lower the $8 billion de minimis threshold of swap dealing activity that a market participant can engage in before it is required to register with the CFTC as a “swap dealer” and become subject to the new Dodd-Frank rules.