Retest

The Fort Worth, TX, city council is considering whether to use city funds to retest ambient air quality around the city’s natural gas drilling sites to determine whether drilling and production are contributing to the city’s air pollution.

EQT Midstream launched an open season Monday to retest interest in a multi-year expansion of its Equitrans interstate pipeline and gathering systems in the Marcellus Shale fairway of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which could provide up to 1.2 Bcf/d of capacity to Northeast gas markets.

Extending Friday’s losses, natural gas futures continued lower yesterday, as traders were greeted back from the weekend to a trading landscape devoid of anything resembling bullish news. Prices wasted little time in reflecting the negative sentiment, gapping lower at the open for the second session in a row before finding support just above the $3.00 level. The August contract notched its lowest closing price since May of 2000, slipping 18.2 cents to $3.068.

Pressured by another wave of follow-through selling, natural gas futures funneled lower for the second day in a row Wednesday, as traders grappled with negative technicals and continued to factor in a bearish storage report. A late rebound trimmed the day’s losses, leaving the prompt May contract with a 10-cent decline at $5.148.

Gas futures climbed to their second highest settlement ever onFriday and appear poised to make that final push this week to theplace where no near-month contract has gone before. What will lifebe like if near-month futures rise above $4.60 (or $4.62, if youuse the prior Nymex Access high of December 1996)?

After gapping up an impressive 2.5 cents at the open yesterday,natural gas futures chopped higher throughout the session astraders grappled with the potential of prices climbing even higherthis summer. The May contract reached its $3.15 high for the dayshortly after 2:30 P.M. (EST), only to tumble lower to settle at$3.137 amid a flurry of market-on-close selling. Estimated volumewas light with only 57,253 contracts changing hands.

Despite double-digit physical market increases and an earlyretest of the $2.80 level, natural gas futures tanked yesterday astraders weighed the impact of warm weather forecasts for the firstpart of October. After holding in the high $2.70s for most of themorning Monday, the November contract was hit with a round ofselling in the afternoon that pushed the price 16.8 cents lower toclose at $2.625.

Fueled by follow-through buying on the heels of Monday advances,the futures market ambled higher yesterday as traders weighed theimpact of bullish news expected to be released this afternoon. TheSeptember contract finished up to 2.3 cents at $2.598. Impressiveadvances were also seen in the out months with the October,November and December contracts notching similar gains.