Mostly

Mostly small losses continued Thursday at nearly all points. Not much heating load remains in any market area; the South is only gradually building up to some significant cooling demand, and a minimal amount of the previously estimated potential quarter Bcf/d of South Louisiana shut-ins due to flooding is occurring.

Weather load is getting more benign in general, but the South is starting to heat up.

Devon Energy Corp., which took the prospective Barnett Shale and turned it into one for the ages, disclosed Wednesday that it has leased 250,000 net acres in the emerging Tuscaloosa Marine Shale of southwestern Mississippi/central Louisiana for a cost of around $180/acre.

Prices rebounded at nearly all points Monday, even with weather forecasts being mostly mild to chilly in northern market areas and merely warm — but not especially hot except from Texas through parts of the desert Southwest — in the southern U.S. The previous Thursday’s futures gain of 10.2 cents and returning industrial demand after a holiday weekend were chiefly responsible for the overall firmness.

Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact pound for pound than CO2, said Cornell ecologist Robert Howarth. He added that “even small leaks make a big difference” and estimated that as much as 8% of the methane in shale gas leaks into the air during the lifetime of a hydraulically fractured shale gas well, which is up to twice what escapes from conventional gas production.

Several Northeast trading locations, mostly in New England, fell Monday despite freezing-or-less overnight lows forecast to persist into Tuesday. However, the rest of the market recorded substantive increases — nearly all in double digits — due to winter-like cold weather lingering into early spring, April futures strength on the preceding Friday and the return of industrial load from its normal weekend decline also contributed to overall upticks.

The market continued to see mixed, mostly near-flat price movement but was showing signs of perking up again by following the previous day’s losses at a majority of points with moderate gains being prevalent Thursday.

While nearly all of the rest of the market was seeing losses that were mostly in double digits Wednesday, an arctic cold front was generating triple-digit spikes at many of the Northeast citygates. General softness elsewhere was based chiefly on areas either already sustaining cool to moderate conditions or moving back in that direction. The previous day’s downturn of 16.4 cents by April futures provided further negative guidance for the cash market.

EQT Corp. grew its proved natural gas reserves by 28% in 2010, ending the year with 5,220 Bcfe. The growth came due to drilling in the Marcellus Shale, continuing improvement in the estimated ultimate recovery of Marcellus wells, as well as an increase in the projected number of wells to be drilled in the Marcellus over the next five years, EQT said.