Registering

Expressing “alarm” that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is not registering all swap dealers that are active in energy markets, six prominent senators from the West Coast said they were “increasingly concerned” that the $8 billion annual de minimis threshold exemption in the agency’s Dodd-Frank rules may allow the vast majority of the energy swap market to fly under the regulator’s radar.

With only a few exceptions all points rose Thursday with eastern points registering the strongest gains and weakness limited to a few points in the West.

April natural gas futures retreated Monday, but only after registering another eight-week high and keeping the bullish case intact. New high or not, short-term traders are suspicious and sense that a rise above $4.50 will be met with stiff selling. At the end of the day April futures had fallen 2.9 cents to $4.374 and May shed 4.2 cents to $4.448. May crude oil dropped $1.42 to $103.98/bbl.

Prices continued to ignore mostly moderate weather in registering small gains at most points Thursday. The previous day’s 5.5-cent increase by expiring May futures played a role in the general cash firmness, as did temperatures reaching the low to mid 80s in much of the South.

Columbia Gas of Ohio Friday filed its gas cost recovery (GCR) adjustment for December with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), registering a more than 50% drop from December of last year. The GCR of 49 cents/100 cubic feet (1 Ccf) of gas will be 70 cents, or 59%, lower than December 2008 when it was $1.19/Ccf.

Natural gas production in the Lower 48 declined fractionally in April, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), registering a 0.2% decline in gross wellhead withdrawals from March. It was the second month in a row to show a reduction.

Natural gas production in the Lower 48 declined fractionally in April, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), registering a 0.2% decline in gross wellhead withdrawals from March. It was the second month in a row to show a reduction.

After appearing to ignore bearish weather fundamentals in registering price gains at all or nearly all points for nearly a week and a half, the cash market had finally shown signs of cracking Wednesday with mostly small losses at a majority of points. The price dam broke Thursday as substantive double-digit losses occurred across the board.

Cash prices continued to rise overall Tuesday, registering dollar-plus increases in several instances, but the upticks were smaller than Monday’s spikes at almost all points. Gulf Coast pipelines with offshore connections reported shut-ins prompted by Hurricane Katrina starting to decline, but Minerals Management Service (MMS) said its count of shut-in Gulf of Mexico (GOM) gas production had risen to 8.798 Bcf/d Tuesday, or about 88% of normal output. GOM oil outages went up to 1.43 million bbl/d, or a whopping 95% of regular GOM supply, MMS said.