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A barely higher Cheyenne Hub in the Rockies was the only point that avoided falling prices Wednesday. The factors that have caused softness in post-Christmas trading at nearly all points were unchanged — light heating load due to unseasonably moderate weather for late December, prior-day futures weakness and bearish attitudes about abundant storage.

In a significant victory for federal prosecutors who are pursuing other high-profile fraud cases post-Enron, a Houston jury late Thursday convicted former Dynegy Inc. executive Jamie Olis, 37, on six counts of fraud.

XTO Energy Inc. said Tuesday that record natural gas and oil production helped the company post record second quarter earnings of $597 million, or $1.64 per share ($1.62 diluted), a 171% increase from second quarter 2005 earnings of $220 million, or 61 cents per share (60 cents diluted). The company also announced that it is raising its full-year 2006 production targets.

Trunkline said that as part of post-hurricane inspections required by the federal Minerals Management Service, it discovered that its lateral offshore Louisiana from Ewing Bank 305 to Grand Isle 82 apparently shifted from its pre-storm location. “At this time, Trunkline is unaware of any specific damage to the lateral,” the pipeline continued. “However, the nature of the observations requires that Trunkline reduce pressure on the lateral until further information can be obtained and analyzed.” Trunkline said it cut production on the lateral to zero, and until further notice no nominations are being accepted from Stone Energy’s Ewing Bank 305 platform.

After a lull following the post-Enron credit crisis, corporate merger and acquisition (M&A) activity once again is on the rise, driven by interest in regional market scale and rising cost pressures among several other factors, according to a new report by Merrill Lynch analysts Steve Fleishman, Jonathan Arnold and Elizabeth Parrella.

North American natural gas prices will gradually ease over the coming years and eventually return to sub-$5/MMBtu levels toward the end of the decade because of growth in liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and U.S. and Canadian unconventional gas resources, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) predicted Wednesday.

Unlike the previous post-weekend resumption of trading, Monday’s cash market acknowledged the bearish weather and storage fundamentals that have dominated January so far with declines across the board. In the process prices ignored the support of Friday’s screen gain of 37.5 cents, but on Tuesday they are likely to heed the negative influence of the February futures contract’s plunge of 70.6 cents Monday.

The much-anticipated combination of FPL Group and Constellation Energy announced last week is likely a harbinger of things to come in a post-PUHCA era, analysts say. However, don’t expect a frenzy of activity, and utility combinations in the absence of non regulated assets will have less appeal than pairings like FPL and Constellation, a deal predicated on non regulated business.

The Northeast, with its relatively moderate weather for late November, tended to be the weakest market area in Monday’s post-holiday spot trading. Otherwise, numbers were mixed in the Gulf Coast and seeing major rallies solidly across the Midcontinent/Midwest and West.