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El Paso Corp. said Wednesday a consortium of 50-plus bankers agreed to a one-year extension of the company’s $3 billion revolving credit facility that was due to expire in May 2004.

Pioneer Natural Resources Co. announced Monday its 100% owned and operated Falcon field in the western deepwater Gulf of Mexico began producing from two wells at approximately 185 MMcf/d and 650 b/d of condensate on March 15. The Falcon field start-up was the second of five major projects the company expects to bring online by early 2004.

After tumbling $3.42 from their $8.50 high on Feb. 28 with only one up-day, April futures finally found a bottom at $5.08 and bounced higher. The contract appeared to be headed for another large drop on Friday morning, opening the day with a sharp move to the downside. But at about 10:40 a.m. buying suddenly kicked in on oversold conditions and by the end of the day, April was up 6.9 cents at $5.430, not far from its daily high of $5.480.

To date, the heating season (from Oct. 4 through Feb. 6) has been slightly colder — 2.3% colder to be precise — but there has been a trend increase in seasonally adjusted demand, implying that the decline in the natural gas supply will pressure prices in the months ahead to remain at a constant above $4 and higher than $6 if the summer months are above normal, according to energy analyst Stephen Smith.

Even prior to last week’s massive storage withdrawal of 162 Bcf and $5-plus January futures prices, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) had tacked on another 46 cents/Mcf to its first quarter 2003 natural gas wellhead price forecast compared to last month’s prediction in its Short-Term Energy Outlook. In the latest Outlook, EIA said it is expecting first quarter prices to average $4.16. It also raised its price forecast for all of next year to $3.69/Mcf from its prediction last month of $3.37.

Economic factors, plus low power prices, an ice storm, a rate refund and pension fund problems have led Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to revise the outlook for Duke Energy from stable to negative.

Consultants at Energy and Environmental Analysis Inc. (EEA) are predicting that given normal weather, natural gas storage levels will drop to near record lows at 600 Bcf by the end of the traditional withdrawal season because of an alarming decline in U.S. natural gas producing capacity. However, an oil and gas engineer with the Energy Information Administration said he isn’t buying any “sky is falling” scenarios. He said productive capacity is very near where it has been historically.

Most Northeast citygates spiked by half a dollar or more Monday, led by a whopping dollar-plus gain to more than $6 in the Transco Zone 6-New York City pool, as sub-freezing temperatures reigned or approached across the northern tier of states as far west as the Rockies.

Another day, another corporate scandal. On Thursday, the target was Westar Energy Inc. Chairman David Wittig, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of money laundering, conspiracy and four counts of submitting false books to a federally insured bank in Topeka, KS.