Showed

Temperatures showed no signs of abating Monday as the heat wave of the past two weeks moved forward with readings topping 100 degrees in a number of regions. As a result, September natural gas futures jumped higher in Sunday night’s Access trading session and kept the momentum rolling into Monday. The contract settled the day at $8.211, up $1.027 from Friday’s close.

Domestic crude oil and natural gas drilling showed a marked increase during the first quarter of the year, according to a report released by the American Petroleum Institute (API).

A few instances of flat to moderately higher pricing showed up in the West, but an overwhelming majority of the cash market continued to probe lower levels Tuesday as traders returned from Christmas holiday. Widespread mild weather and the extension of natural gas futures plunges into their third day Tuesday weighed heavily on cash quotes.

The natural gas futures market showed little reaction to the 49 Bcf withdrawal reported by the Energy Information Administration in its weekly gas storage report on Thursday morning. The number that was within the range of market expectations. However, as the mercury continued to drop in key eastern energy markets Thursday, January natural gas futures pushed higher, settling at $13.027, up 44 cents for the day.

The first full report on pipelines and processing plants by the Department of Energy Tuesday showed that 21 gas processing plants in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi remain shuttered either for lack of power, gas supplies or damage to the facilities themselves. DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) also reported that 23 pipelines were damaged during Hurricane Rita and 21 during Hurricane Katrina.

The cash market showed little apparent rhyme or reason Tuesday as September swing trading opened with a hodgepodge of mixed price movement that nevertheless favored the upside in a majority of cases. Prices may have found more weather-related load than expected, and the screen’s gain of nearly a nickel Monday may have played a part.

A survey of 31 of the most aggressively-drilling U.S. independents showed a 34% increase in exploration and development (E&D) spending in 2003 at the same time those companies were experiencing a 69% increase in total cash flow, according to Raymond James & Associates.

A survey of 31 of the most aggressively-drilling U.S. independents showed a 34% increase in exploration and development (E&D) spending in 2003 at the same time those companies were experiencing a 69% increase in total cash flow, according to Raymond James & Associates.

Ten customers with an appetite for up to 750 MMcf/d of additional natural gas supplies showed interest in a potential extension of the North Baja international transmission pipeline, according to the pipeline’s joint backers, subsidiaries of Sempra Energy and National Energy and Gas Transmission, the renamed former PG&E Corp. merchant energy unit now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.