Suffered

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suffered another major defeat last Tuesday when an appeals court in Washington, DC, vacated an agency rule aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in 28 upwind states located primarily in the East and Texas.

The bloom has been off the dry gas rose for a while now, but the Fayetteville Shale continues to provide Arkansas with a bouquet of economic activity and job creation, according to a new study.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey McClendon appeared to take it on the chin Wednesday, refusing to bow down to reports about the “unprecedented scrutiny” of the company and of himself in recent days, and promised shareholders that the management team is focused on becoming a U.S. oil-weighted giant. However, it’s going to take some time, he said, especially because the turnaround has little operational support from its natural gas-weighted portfolio.

Physical natural gas prices at virtually all points suffered an average 6-cent drubbing as weekend temperatures were expected to be on the mild side. Only a handful of points posted gains. Southern California was hit with double-digit declines as a temporary outage at a nuclear plant was expected to be resolved. Futures rallied on weekend short-covering, and traders see further buying should prices settle about another 10 cents higher. June futures rose 6 cents to $2.186, and July gained 5.7 cents to $2.299. June crude oil rose 38 cents to $104.93/bbl.

The physical market slipped about a penny Thursday with quotes mostly about one or two cents on either side of unchanged. California points suffered a serious drubbing as a trio of factors combined to send points in the southern portion of the state reeling. Industrial users buying at index saw a market that did not look like it would turn around for several years and admitted any losses on the purchase of physical gas were made up by gains in the financial markets.

BP plc’s Atlantis project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), which suffered fits and starts before finally ramping up in 2007, is “presently not fit for service under normal engineering standards,” a lawyer for a former BP contractor — and now whistle-blower — said at a pretrial hearing in Houston Monday.

The cash market was a “Tale of Two Cities” Tuesday as the bulk of locations meandered within a couple of pennies of Monday’s settlement, but the swooning Northeast suffered $1 plus declines as near-term weather was expected to moderate. Futures prices resorted to a mixed finish in light trading, and at the close April had risen 0.1 cent to $2.356 and May had dropped 1.0 cents to $2.462. April crude oil followed weak equity markets lower and tumbled $2.02 to $104.70/bbl.

Hess Corp. officials said last week that although production fell in 2011 and it suffered a net earnings loss in the final quarter, they are confident 2012 will be a better year as they move forward with promising development in North America’s onshore and the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

Hess Corp. officials said that although production fell in 2011 and the company suffered a net loss in the final quarter, they are confident 2012 will be a better year as they move forward with promising development in North America’s onshore and the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM).