Pressure

Bullish prior-day screen teams with colder temps to keep upward pressure on market.

Under pressure from the general public and state officials, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) on Monday issued a general apology to its customers and began offering more details on its massive billion-dollar-plus transition to an advanced metering system for its electric and natural gas utility customers. The utility released a 700-page report on its almost four-year-old effort to deploy smart meters for all of its customers.

While NGL economics have been particularly good of late, they won’t necessarily stay that way. Prices could come under pressure as supply grows and demand softens, noted analysts at Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Securities Inc. (TPH) last week.

Harnessing momentum from Thursday’s lackluster 111 Bcf storage draw report, natural gas futures traders on Friday continued to put pressure on the downside of the market, resulting in the April contract closing at $4.400, down 4 cents from Thursday’s regular session finish and 19.3 cents lower than the previous week’s close.

Harnessing momentum from Thursday’s lackluster 111 Bcf storage draw report, natural gas futures traders on Friday continued to put pressure on the downside of the market, resulting in the April contract closing at $4.400, down 4 cents from Thursday’s regular session finish and 19.3 cents lower than the previous week’s close.

Backed by the recent stretch of colder weather in a number of high-gas demand regions, traders continued to keep upward pressure on the natural gas futures market on Tuesday as the front-month contract made yet another new high — both outright and on a closing basis — for the bull move that began three months ago.

Independent exploration and production (E&P) companies remain under pressure in the near term from an ongoing natural gas supply glut, which will pinch cash flow and returns in 2010, Moody’s Investors Service said in its annual outlook on the industry.

A conservative group last Monday put pressure on the Obama administration to disclose the breakdown of the half-million public comments that it received on the Bush-era five-year plan (2010-2015) to open more offshore areas to oil and natural gas leasing.

A natural gas producer group and interstate gas pipeline association separately stepped up the pressure on Capitol Hill lawmakers Monday by calling for an expansion of the role of natural gas in climate change legislation.