Ring

Maintaining the downward momentum from last Friday, the December natural gas futures contract — aided by some rare weakness in the petroleum ring — continued to scout lower price levels on Monday, recording a low of $7.980 before closing out at $7.999, down 41.9 cents from Friday.

Trading was mostly stable in natural gas futures on Tuesday despite the beating taken by crude oil futures in a nearby trading ring. Even with much of the country enduring or bracing for a mid-January cold snap, which already includes ice storms in the Midwest and Northeast, February natural gas put in a low of $6.460 and a high of $6.730 before settling Tuesday at $6.638, just 3.7 cents higher than Friday’s close.

Shrugging off gains achieved in the nearby crude oil pit, the natural gas futures market set new lows for the week Friday as traders liquidated positions in concert with some negative technical factors and ahead of mild weather expected this week. At $6.442, the newly-anointed prompt month July was down 13.1 cents for the session, but still up 3.3 cents for the week.

Throwing its hat in the ring with a number of U.S. energy giants such as El Paso Corp. and Chevron, San Diego-based Sempra Energy is pursuing a proposal for an on- or offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal along the Pacific coast of northern Baja somewhere in a 70-mile strip south of the U.S. border. The proposed project would be financed by a consortium that would include Mexican interests, as well as Sempra. A formal announcement about the project is expected to come later in the month, according to Sempra officials.