Slower

While many North American gas producers will see ever sharper production decline rates in the coming years, EnCana Corp. said its “resource play” strategy has enabled it to grow both production and reserves and project flatter declines each subsequent year.

While many North American gas producers will see ever sharper production decline rates in the coming years, EnCana Corp. said its “resource play” strategy has enabled it to grow both production and reserves and project flatter declines each subsequent year.

This week’s price run-ups got slower again Wednesday, essentially grinding to a halt in parts of the cash market. Weather fundamentals remained strong for the most part as high temperatures ranging from very warm to severely hot continue to dominate the U.S. climate except along the relatively cool West Coast. The natural gas futures screen continued to lend support to cash numbers with a gain of 15 cents-plus, accompanied by strong showings in crude oil, heating oil and New York Harbor unleaded gasoline. However, expectations of another bearish storage report Thursday reportedly tended to temper new buying for injection purposes.

Prices were still on the rise in most cases Monday despite somewhat weaker weather fundamentals, but the gains generally were smaller than those for the weekend. A majority of increases were fairly mild in single digits, although several Northeast citygates and scattered other points rose by dime-plus amounts. A few points were flat.

The swing market was experiencing only mild aftershocks Thursday following the major earthquakes earlier in the week. Except for some gains in the Rockies, the price path remained downhill everywhere else but the slope was getting less steep. The calm-down was welcomed by traders, since it lessened the stress of price hyper-volatility and also allowed them to focus more on March bidweek business.

Prices were still moving higher in most cases Tuesday, but generally at a slower pace than on the day before. Markets as disparate as citygates in Florida and the Northeast, San Juan Basin and the Pacific Northwest/Western Canada were still seeing double-digit gains of up to about a quarter, with Algonquin citygates averaging a little more than $5. But a majority of points ranged from flat to up about a dime, with gains of a nickel or less prevalent.

Despite forecasts of slower regional economic and population growth, the Northeast is expected to consume one-third more natural gas over the next 20 years just to fuel the string of power generation facilities that are planned for the region, an official with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said last Thursday.

Despite forecasts of slower regional economic and population growth, the Northeast is expected to consume one-third more natural gas over the next 20 years just to fuel the string of power generation facilities that are being constructed in the region, an official with the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Thursday.

The number of domestic natural gas wells drilled during the third quarter of this year rose a whopping 24%, while oil wells drilled climbed at a slower pace — 8%, according to the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) Quarterly Well Completion Report.