Maintaining

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said the state would be prudent in developing the Marcellus and Utica shales, maintaining tough environmental regulations while looking to attract jobs and investment.

October natural gas trudged lower Friday as traders see widening differentials auguring further weakness. October fell 6.9 cents to $3.809 and November dropped 5.9 cents to $3.922. October crude oil shed $1.44 to $87.96/bbl.

Pacific Gas and Electric issued a systemwide Stage 2 low-inventory OFO for Monday on its California Gas Transmission system and kept it in place through at least Tuesday, maintaining penalties on both days of $1/Dth for exceeding a 5% tolerance on negative daily imbalances.

Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday three-fourths of drilling wastewater haulers that were stopped by troopers late last month were issued citations and 207 trucks were placed out of service due to violations.

The ongoing oversupply of natural gas hasn’t deterred most independent exploration and production (E&P) companies from maintaining a robust drilling pace in the shale plays because of the shift by many to crude and natural gas liquids (NGL) for margin relief, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report.

After maintaining a facade of firmness for most of the week in the face of generally weak fundamental influences, the cash market fell at all but one point Friday, finally succumbing to the reality of little weather-based load, an ongoing lack of any tropical storm threats to offshore production, abundant storage inventories and a prior-day futures decline.

Florida Gas Transmission ended an Overage Alert Day Thursday.

Maintaining the momentum from the final two days of trading last week, natural gas futures on Monday — aided by strength in equities and petroleum futures — continued higher despite the lack of direct bullish fundamentals. The April contract climbed 6.7 cents to close at $4.294.

Maintaining the downward momentum from last Friday, the December natural gas futures contract — aided by some rare weakness in the petroleum ring — continued to scout lower price levels on Monday, recording a low of $7.980 before closing out at $7.999, down 41.9 cents from Friday.