Resistance

Wyoming Oil and Gas Supervisor Tom Doll suddenly resigned Thursday, Gov. Matt Mead’s office announced late in the day. The resignation came a little more than a week after Doll publicly lambasted the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its handling of the well water and natural gas drilling case near Pavillion, WY, that has evolved into lingering state-federal issue.

A pair of votes Tuesday highlighted the struggle Pennsylvania’s local governments are having with a new regulatory package of shale development.

Mountainview Energy Ltd. announced Wednesday that its founder, Joseph Montalban, has resigned from the company’s board of directors effective May 19. Montalban began his career in the oil and gas industry in the early 1950s, first as a roughneck in Alberta and then as a vice president for Flank Oil. He discovered oil in the Bakken Shale after drilling the Bugby #1 well in Glacier County, MT for Flank in 1957. He formed Montalban Drilling in the late 1950s and two public companies in the early 1970s, which would become MSR Exploration Ltd. in 1983. He also founded Gyspy Highview Gathering System Inc. In 2001 Montalban and his son, Patrick, formed Mountainview, which trades on the TSX Venture Exchange. Mountainview, based in Cut Bank, MT, is focused on exploration, production and development of the Bakken and Three Forks shales in the Williston Basin and the south Alberta Bakken shale play.

Natural gas futures pushed higher for a second straight day as the October contract tested $4 resistance on Wednesday before closing at $3.966, up 4.7 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

There would be no resistance test of $5.192 for the sixth out of the last seven days on Tuesday as the July natural gas futures contract continued to probe the downside. After mustering a high of only $4.888 on the day, the prompt-month contract recorded a low of $4.691 before closing Tuesday’s regular session at $4.756, down 11.7 cents from Monday’s finish.

October natural gas futures continued to probe upside resistance after the long holiday weekend, but for at least one market observer, the move higher “lacked enthusiasm.” The front-month contract climbed 7.9 cents Tuesday to close at $2.807.

Despite venturing above psychological resistance at $8 for the second time in as many days, October natural gas futures once again retreated as traders have recently shown a fair amount of comfort with prices between $7 and $8. The front-month contract, which expires Friday, traded between $7.605 and $8.093 during Wednesday’s regular session before closing out at $7.679, down 25.2 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

After digesting and dismissing a larger-than-expected storage withdrawal report in morning trade and testing $8 resistance-turned-support, February natural gas futures did an about-face to the upside just before noon EST on Thursday. Fueled by talks of further interest rate cuts, the contract notched a new $8.280 high for the move before settling the day at $8.259, up 16 cents from Wednesday’s finish.

Having lost its joint venture partner, ConocoPhillips, and seeing no softening of the local government officials’ resistance, Mitsubishi’s Sound Energy Solutions (SES) is hoping a California Superior Court in Los Angeles will eventually put its plans back on track for a proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Port of Long Beach. A court hearing Friday was set to outline the schedule for the case in the first quarter next year.