Numbers

Both North American majors and independents reported strong earnings Wednesday in a barrage of quarterly financial reports, but production results continued to be mixed. ConocoPhillips blamed seasonal declines, asset sales and scheduled maintenance for its production shortfall, and it was the same story at Amerada Hess Corp. and Kerr-McGee Corp. Of those reporting, only Noble Energy Corp. reported production gains — up 4% over a year ago.

Sharply higher numbers Tuesday in both the physical and futures markets left quite a few cash traders puzzled, since they were seeing precious little fundamental support for rising prices.

Record second quarter natural gas production of 631 MMcf/d, a 26% increase from the same period a year ago, have led Fort Worth-based XTO Energy Inc. to increase its gas production projections through the remainder of 2003, the company said Tuesday. The company reported second quarter revenues and operating income about 50% above the same quarter last year.

Record second quarter natural gas production of 631 MMcf/d, a 26% increase from the same period a year ago, have led Fort Worth-based XTO Energy Inc. to increase its gas production projections through the remainder of 2003, the company said Tuesday. The company reported second quarter revenues and operating income about 50% above the same quarter last year.

While noting that the figures may differ quite considerably from the final numbers that will be reported on July 29, BP on Wednesday released a trading update that provided an overview of the revenue and trading conditions it experienced during the second quarter ending June 30, 2003.

Much like the week started, mostly flat numbers with a mild tendency to the upside were predominant in most market areas Wednesday. No longer constrained on injections by a partial-day outage of Questar’s Clay Basin storage facility (see Daily GPI, April 14), Rockies/San Juan pricing rebounded from Tuesday’s weakness but in most cases failed to regain as much as it had lost.

Big declines in Northeast and San Juan/Rockies numbers stood out Friday amid a general market that was flat to slightly lower. Fairly benign weather helped explain the softness in parts of the West, while the Northeast was consolidating from recently sky-high price levels.

A vast majority of the cash market apparently decided to take it easy Wednesday and await further developments. Mild softness at a few Northeast points and losses between a nickel and 15 cents in San Juan Basin and the Rockies were the only aberrations in an otherwise basically flat price landscape.

The start of the November aftermarket saw a decidedly mixed bag of price movement Thursday. Compared with last-of-October numbers, Nov. 1 pricing ranged from about half a dollar lower (San Juan Basin) to a little more than a dime higher (SoCal border), with many gradations between those extremes. Overall, the negative changes outweighed the positive ones.