Seeing

Schlumberger Ltd. is seeing continued strength in its North American operations in part because of its hydraulic fracturing (fracking) technology, which is reducing time and costs to complete a well, management said Friday.

Southern Union Co. is seeing its dance card beginning to fill up after Williams arrived late Thursday bearing a more lucrative merger package than one offered earlier this month by Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE).

Southern Union Co. is seeing its dance card beginning to fill up after Williams arrived late Thursday bearing a more lucrative merger package than one offered earlier this month by Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE).

Thousands of jobs would be created in West Virginia if a thermal cracker facility was built to process ethane gas from Marcellus Shale drilling, state officials said Wednesday.

April natural gas rose Monday with traders seeing a shift to natural gas as Japan copes with possible nuclear meltdowns resulting from earthquake and tsunami damage. Technical strength was also noted. At the close April natural gas was 2.5 cents higher at $3.914 after trading as much as 16 cents higher at the open, and May added 3.1 cents to $3.976. April crude oil gained 3 cents to $101.19/bbl.

While nearly all of the rest of the market was seeing losses that were mostly in double digits Wednesday, an arctic cold front was generating triple-digit spikes at many of the Northeast citygates. General softness elsewhere was based chiefly on areas either already sustaining cool to moderate conditions or moving back in that direction. The previous day’s downturn of 16.4 cents by April futures provided further negative guidance for the cash market.

Monday’s slight firmness in the face of still-mild weather in most areas likely was due in part to traders looking down the road a bit and seeing forecasts of colder temperatures. With the change to more bullish weather influences drawing closer, traders pushed all but one point higher Tuesday.

Enterprise Products Partners LP Tuesday announced several projects to extend and expand its natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) infrastructure in South Texas and Mont Belvieu, TX, to accommodate growing volumes from the Eagle Ford Shale play.

Denver-based Bill Barrett Corp., whose fortunes are tied to the natural gas transportation system out of its core Rocky Mountain operations, is seeing “improving infrastructure” for both gas and liquids, COO Joe Jaggers told financial analysts last week.