Round

The natural gas futures market on Wednesday continued to limp back from the long holiday weekend as another round of light trading in the October contract produced a 14-cent range on the day before closing the regular session at $3.940, up two-tenths of a penny from Tuesday’s finish. The November contract followed suit with a 0.2-cent gain to close at $4.045.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. and a private seller of assets in the Williston Basin have leveled a second round of lawsuits against each other in federal court in North Dakota, the latest in a series of legal battles involving about 15,500 gross oil and gas acres.

In a world of abundant North American natural gas and a new round of oil shocks, the parting of oil and gas prices has grown so wide it’s as if the two never knew each other. Were they ever really linked, asks one analyst; while another notes that gas appears to have fallen out of step with the broader commodity basket.

In a world of abundant North American natural gas and a new round of oil shocks, the parting of oil and gas prices has grown so wide (25-to-1, give or take) it’s as if the two never knew each other. Were they ever really linked, asks one analyst; while another notes that gas appears to have fallen out of step with the broader commodity basket.

The Interior Department said Tuesday it will take another pass at the rules set by the last administration for extracting shale oil from two million acres of federal land in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, with the possibility of cutting the acreage total and raising royalties.

Round one has been won by resisting natural gas shippers in the international battle over TransCanada Corp.’s attempt to create a new tolling regime on its troubled Mainline.

Round one has been won by resisting natural gas shippers in the international battle over TransCanada Corp.’s attempt to create a new tolling regime on its troubled Mainline.

It appeared that market watchers were engaged in a round of “buy the rumor, sell the fact” following Thursday’s news from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) that 164 Bcf was withdrawn from natural gas storage for the week ending Dec. 10. Immediately following the report, front-month futures values plummeted toward $4.

Companies that missed out on the first round of leasing in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas that began in 2008 will have another chance as some of those leases will be expiring in the coming months, an industry analyst said recently.