Numbers

Cash numbers continued to rise at all points Wednesday, but the size of the increases was considerably less than on the day before. Small to sizeable retreats in the Midwest and South from heat levels that had been rising earlier in the week were cited as the key factor in slowing down the post-holiday rally.

Several of the leading North American-focused oil and gas producers reported strong quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with three out of four — ConocoPhillips, Amerada Hess and Kerr-McGee — up on higher commodity prices. However, even though EnCana’s earnings were off compared with a year ago, it far and away took the honors in higher natural gas production.

The Justice Department has begun an investigation into whether top officials at Royal Dutch/Shell Group broke any laws by failing to disclose earlier an overbooking of the company’s proven oil and natural gas reserves, a source close to the inquiry told the Houston Chronicle.

Adding to the growing list of producers detailing their proved reserves numbers, ConocoPhillips reported Monday that it showed a net gain of 650 MMboe last year.

The fallout continues from El Paso Corp.’s announcement to revise downward its oil and gas reserves by 41%, with at least three class action lawsuits filed by the end of the week. El Paso announced the changes late Tuesday, and investor confidence has eroded since (see Daily GPI, Feb. 19).

As presaged by reports of falling numbers in late deals Wednesday, prices fell between about a nickel and 30 cents at most points Thursday with seriously cold weather remaining largely confined to the Midwest, Northeast and some parts of the Rockies. Northeast citygates, where a return to the deep freeze was impending following Thursday’s brief respite from frigid conditions, again ran contrary to overall trends with gains on either side of a dollar.

For the first time in many years, the current land rig up-cycle has not led to an exponential increase in land dayrates, offering substantial upside in stock prices for all U.S. land drillers for the foreseeable future, according to the Raymond James Energy Group’s latest Stat of the Week.

After sifting through the numbers of the recent ReedHycalog Rig Census, analysts at Raymond James & Associates found some interesting new trends in the drilling industry, particularly the shift in domestic drilling to a larger land fleet, migration of the offshore rig fleet overseas and higher domestic rig utilizations — but still below the 2001 peak.

Cash numbers that had been firming for nearly all of last week finally headed back down Friday despite the prospect of cool to freezing weekends almost everywhere. Instead, traders looked ahead to general warming trends early this week, some of them due to start before Monday, and behind to Thursday’s screen drop of nearly a quarter in sending prices lower.