Themselves

U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies continue to find themselves “sandwiched in a vise of rising costs and low gas prices” that may take time to play out, an energy analyst said Tuesday.

Clean Vehicle Solutions LLC, based in East Brunswick, NJ, is one of a consortium of companies positioning themselves to serve the East Coast market for fleet vehicle conversions to natural gas, providing an “end-to-end” solution for government and private companies to make the switch to compressed natural gas (CNG) that on average will cut their emissions by 30%.

Clean Vehicle Solutions LLC, based in East Brunswick, NJ, is one of a consortium of companies positioning themselves to serve the East Coast market for fleet vehicle conversions to natural gas, providing an “end-to-end” solution for government and private companies to make the switch to compressed natural gas (CNG) that on average will cut their emissions by 30%.

June natural gas futures lost ground in active inventory report-driven trading Thursday as natural gas bulls found themselves swimming upstream against government storage data that showed a greater-than-expected addition to inventories and continuing upheaval in oil and financial markets.

Natural gas futures traders on Thursday found themselves caught between opposing fundamentals as a bearish 115 Bcf storage draw report collided with expectations of a wave of lasting wintry cold Friday that was expected to bring heavy snowfalls from Omaha, NE, to Chicago, to Washington, DC, to New York City. The March contract ended up closing the day’s regular session at $5.416, three-tenths of a penny below Wednesday’s finish.

Natural gas futures traders on Thursday found themselves caught between opposing fundamentals as a bearish 115 Bcf storage draw report collided with expectations of a wave of lasting wintry cold Friday that was expected to bring heavy snowfalls from Omaha, NE, to Chicago, to Washington, DC, to New York City. The March contract ended up closing the day’s regular session at $5.416, three-tenths of a penny below Wednesday’s finish.

February natural gas futures gained another 14.2 cents on Wednesday as traders positioned themselves for what could be confirmation Thursday morning that last week’s bone-chilling cold resulted in an all-time record natural gas storage withdrawal. The prompt-month contract closed Wednesday’s regular session at $5.733.

The plain vanilla merchant power plant developer/operators of the past need to transform themselves into broader renewable, transportation and natural gas fields in the post-carbon world, according to NRG Energy Inc. CEO David Crane, who spoke to financial analysts in Houston Thursday.

Coming off the exceptionally warm January of last year, U.S. natural gas and electric utilities found themselves a little bit busier this year. While January 2009 proved to be colder than January 2008, temperatures for the contiguous United States last month were still “slightly above” the long-term average, based on records going back to 1895, according to a preliminary analysis by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC.