Roller

The cash market continued this week’s roller-coaster ride, returning to a fairly steep uphill track for most locations in recording gains virtually across the board Wednesday. Thursday lows getting to freezing or occasionally lower were the main driver of the bullishness, getting a small extra contribution from Tuesday’s screen advance of 3.8 cents.

Shares of BP plc took a roller coaster ride last week while the estimate of the amount of oil its leaking Macondo well has spewed into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) was on the ascent.

While events in energy markets in 2009 did not resemble the roller-coaster ride of 2008, technological innovations that opened the floodgates for gas production out of shale plays changed the paradigm for the gas market, according to a state of the markets report issued Thursday by FERC’s Division of Energy Market Oversight.

While events in energy markets in 2009 did not resemble the roller-coaster ride of 2008, technological innovations that opened the floodgates for gas production out of shale plays changed the paradigm for the gas market, according to a state of the markets report issued Thursday by FERC’s Division of Energy Market Oversight.

While events in energy markets in 2009 did not resemble the roller-coaster ride of 2008, technological innovations that opened the floodgates for gas production out of shale plays changed the paradigm for the gas market, according to a state of the markets report issued Thursday by FERC’s Division of Energy Market Oversight.

Completing a week of wild roller-coaster ups and downs before basically returning to where it had begun the week, the May natural gas futures contract on Friday streaked higher to close the day at $4.070, up 16.1 cents from Thursday’s close but 1.6 cents less than the previous week’s finish.

Completing a week of wild roller-coaster ups and downs before basically returning to where it had begun the week, the May natural gas futures contract on Friday streaked higher to close the day at $4.070, up 16.1 cents from Thursday’s close but 1.6 cents less than the previous week’s finish.

The natural gas futures roller-coaster ride, complete with ups and downs, continued into a new week as the October contract — fresh off of a 32-cent jump Friday — dropped 20.2 cents Monday to close at $3.576.

Financial market fundamentals and some tightening in the supply-demand balance for natural gas in the first half of 2008 were responsible for the roller-coaster ride for gas prices last year, according to a report released by FERC last Thursday.