Quarter

Coming off of a fourth quarter in which it achieved its targeted annual production rate growth of 17%, Phillips Petroleum Co. added 433 MMboe, net of sales, to its worldwide proved reserves in 2001, replacing 135% of its 2001 worldwide oil and gas production.

Sharply lower gas and oil prices in the fourth quarter of 2001 forced Devon Energy to write down the value of its reserves by $556 million (after taxes) and take a $518 million net loss compared to $307 million in net earnings in 4Q2000. Quarterly earnings per share before special charges were 23 cents, or nearly double the average of Wall Street estimates. Despite the poor results, Devon reported record high oil and gas production, revenues and year-end reserves, mainly because of its mergers with Canada’s Anderson Exploration and Houston-based Santa Fe Snyder.

Richmond, VA-based Dominion said it is conducting an open season in the first quarter of 2002 to seek customers for high deliverability storage service from its Hackberry storage facility in southwest Louisiana. Dominion said it plans to construct compressor facilities and natural gas pipelines to connect Hackberry’s existing salt caverns to several interstate pipelines in the area that carry supplies to the major U.S. markets.

Prices fell at all points Thursday, with the largest declines of about a quarter or more concentrated in the Rocky Mountains. It was hardly a surprise to encounter a weakening market, one trader said. A static screen had no influence on cash, he added, but the key factors were familiar to everyone: mild weather everywhere and essentially full storage approaching the winter.

Cash prices plummeted by about a quarter or more nearly across the board Thursday, ignoring an essentially flat screen during the morning that eventually eked out a gain of nearly 7 cents. The market rout had been signaled the day before by a futures dive in response to a larger-than-expected storage injection report, late retreats in Wednesday morning’s cash trading and reports of big drops in both on-line trading for Friday and and rest-of-month baseload numbers.

El Paso Merchant Energy Co. (EPME), by its own admission, earned a pre-tax net profit of $184 million during 2000 and the first quarter of this year as a result of its control of 1.22 Bcf/d of capacity on affiliate El Paso Natural Gas, said the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Friday.

El Paso Merchant Energy Co. (EPME), by its own admission, earned a pre-tax net profit of $184 million during 2000 and the first quarter of this year as a result of its control of 1.22 Bcf/d of capacity on affiliate El Paso Natural Gas, said the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Friday.

To no one’s surprise, softness ruled in Friday’s trading for the weekend. Most price drops ranged from about a nickel to a quarter, with those in the vicinity of a dime most common. The larger declines tended to be at western points, and weekend OFOs caused border-SoCalGas and the PG&E citygate to register plunges on either side of a dollar.

Bolstered by a futures gain of slightly more than a quarter but not much else other than expectations of more robust fundamentals, cash prices rebounded across the board Monday. Every point was up around 20 cents or more, with western increases tending to be much larger and hitting triple digits in California. Rockies numbers were on the high side of $2 again after having dipped below that level for the weekend.