Shaking

Shaking off the economic barnacles of the recession better than some of its neighboring states, New Mexico’s oil and natural gas industry has come back to 90% of all-time peak activity six years ago, and it has done it mostly through ramped-up oil drilling chasing relatively high prices, according to a report released Thursday by an independent, nonprofit economic research firm.

Shaking off last Friday’s softness, natural gas cash points across the country overlooked early spring temperatures to record gains across the board, but behind the scenes most of the talk was centered on what, if any, repercussions might the U.S. gas market see down the road from the unfolding tragedy in Japan.

Activist shareholder Carl Icahn, famous for shaking up management teams at what he considers undervalued companies, now holds about 5.8% of Chesapeake Energy Corp., according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Activist shareholder Carl Icahn, famous for shaking up management teams at what he considers undervalued companies, now holds about 5.8% of Chesapeake Energy Corp., according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

With its reputation in tatters and costs continuing to escalate, BP plc last week launched a radical revamp, moving aside its CEO and shaking up its operations with plans to sell close to $30 billion worth of its worldwide assets.

Expectations of a warm-up early next week, combined with some moving and shaking by one of the major natural gas funds, helped November natural gas futures on Wednesday to continue testing downside support. The prompt-month contract recorded a low of $4.399 before closing the regular session at $4.436, down 15.2 cents from Tuesday.

DTE Energy is shaking up its nonutility operations in a major restructuring that could net the diversified energy company between $1-2 billion from the sale of power plants and oil and gas properties. The move would simplify DTE’s diversified earnings structure and redeploy cash to its core utility and growing midstream operations.

The natural gas industry had a lot of troublemakers shaking things up last year, with price spikes, up-and-down weather and hurricane-related supply disruptions. Energy traders, though, managed to take a lot of those lemons and make lemonade, with all but one of NGI’s top 10 North American gas marketers squeezing out strong gains for the final quarter of 2005, and all but one showing strong gains for the year.

Shaking off Tuesday’s price slide, the natural gas futures market on Wednesday moved back to within striking distance of last week’s peak as traders were more impressed with the price gyrations in crude oil futures than the somewhat bearish short-term outlook in natural gas.