Mixed

A few flat to barely lower points in the Midcontinent, Gulf Coast and Southwest mixed with moderate increases in the rest of the market Tuesday. Screen strength from the day before, along with continued storage buying, nuclear plant outages and power generation demand in the sultry South, were the major contributors to keeping this week’s cash bullishness from fading.

Soaring oil and gas sales pushed two of North America’s largest independents, Devon Energy Corp. and EnCana Corp., to record first quarter earnings. Devon’s net earnings were $436 million ($2.76 a share), compared with $62 million (41 cents) a year ago. Meanwhile, Calgary-based EnCana earned C$1.246 billion (C$2.57), versus C$163 million (34 cents) for the same period of 2002.

Soaring oil and gas sales pushed two of North America’s largest independents, Devon Energy Corp. and EnCana Corp., to record first quarter earnings. Devon’s net earnings were $436 million ($2.76 a share), compared with $62 million (41 cents) a year ago. Meanwhile, Calgary-based EnCana earned C$1.246 billion (C$2.57), versus C$163 million (34 cents) for the same period of 2002.

After spiking 43 cents on frenzied buying Monday, natural gas futures sifted lower Tuesday as traders took profits on bearish weather forecasts as well as expectations calling for a large storage injection to be announced later this week.

Two more of the top majors, ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX) and Royal Dutch Shell Group, reported record first quarter earnings on Friday, as high commodity prices continued to boost income.

U.S. natural gas production results for the first quarter have been mixed so far, with some companies reporting tremendous growth compared to the first quarter of last year while others have shown sharp declines. According to company figures compiled by NGI, the net result of majors and independents reporting results so far is a 1% decrease in domestic natural gas supply for the first quarter compared with last year.

If you look up the dictionary definition of “mixed,” by now the entry might be reading, “See Thursday’s cash gas market.” The number of rising points slightly outweighed the falling ones, but many of the gains were small (in single digits) and most of the losses were large at 30-55 cents or so.

Although officially spring on the calendar, it was still winter Monday if you live in the upper Midwest, the Northeast, or trade natural gas futures.

The weather continued to range Thursday from memories of winter in Canada and the northern third of the U.S. to hints of summer across the South and Southwest, with the territory in between serving as a buffer with varying but mostly spring-like conditions. The cash market tended to reflect such fundamentals, ranging within a dime up or down from flat in most cases, but with the positive moves outweighing the negative ones.