Round

In a quiet session by most accounts, August natural gas futures pushed higher Wednesday in a renewed round of short-covering following last Friday’s $5.470 low for the move. After reaching a high of $5.830, the prompt month ended up settling Wednesday at $5.782, up 14.9 cents on the day, which brings the week’s total hike to date to 25.9 cents.

Hotter temperatures year-round could be here to stay, according to a new report on global temperatures by a National Research Council committee. The council said there is “sufficient evidence” from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other “proxies” of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years.

The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) solved the dilemma of how to take its electronic energy trading to a round-the-clock schedule. Nymex Holdings Inc. reported Thursday that it has entered into a technology services agreement with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), under which the CME will become the exclusive electronic trading services provider for Nymex’s energy futures and options contracts.

After a round of negotiations and proposed amendments during the state legislature’s first week back from its summer recess last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “million solar roofs” proposal (SB 1) and several other major energy proposals face a critical test this Wednesday in the state lower house Assembly Appropriations Committee. What form the proposals will take, and who is supporting them, was still unknown last Friday.

On its second go-round the District of Columbia Court of Appeals last Tuesday dismissed lawsuits that sought to force Vice President Dick Cheney to turn over records and documents disclosing the names of energy companies and attending task force deliberations that crafted the 2001 national energy policy.

On its second go-round the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Tuesday dismissed lawsuits that sought to force Vice President Dick Cheney to turn over records and documents disclosing the names of energy companies and lobbyists participating in task force deliberations that crafted the 2001 national energy policy.

A previous bankruptcy court ruling in an ongoing dispute between Enron and Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co. over termination payments stemming from 2001 power contracts is not the final word in the squabble, a FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) ruled on Thursday, allowing related proceedings at the federal agency to continue.

With the rapid return of Gulf production following Tropical Storm Bonnie and a bearish storage report featuring a hefty 72 Bcf injection, bears in the natural gas futures pit had little difficulty pressuring prices lower for the second straight session Thursday. Again, the front months were the hardest hit, led by the September contract which dropped 17.2 cents to close at $5.442. By comparison, the winter months suffered only single-digit defeats, which served to widen the already considerable summer-winter spread.

Mexico’s state-owned oil and gas monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) opened its second round of tender offers for companies interested in exploring for natural gas in the Burgos Basin. Pemex will take bids on four new blocks in the region located south of Texas. Through its multiple-service contracts, which allow international companies to take part in exploration, Pemex last year awarded tenders for five blocks in the basin. The contracts are part of Mexico’s plan to halve the country’s gas imports by 2007. Last year, Mexico’s gas output totaled 4.4 Bcf/d. Pemex will take bids for the Pandura-Anahuac and Ricos blocks through Oct. 26. Tenders for the Pirineo and Monoclonal blocks will begin Aug. 17 and will be taken through Nov. 23. In total, Pemex said the contracts are worth $2.7 billion.