Volumes

Ahead of the annual shareholder meeting on Friday, Chesapeake Energy Corp. acquiesced to demands of major shareholder groups and Carl Icahn, who now holds 7.8% of the stock, and said four existing independent directors would resign from the board. The company also has put up for sale 337,481 net acres in its prized Utica/Point Pleasant Shale, which would give it less than one million acres in the play.

Ultra Petroleum Corp. said that while it produced record volumes during 1Q2012 and was optimistic about its plans to target oil shale in the Niobrara, it would follow the example of its joint venture (JV) partners in the Marcellus and cut capital expenditures (capex) for the rest of the year.

First quarter results of Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. improved over the year-ago period, thanks mainly to expansion of the company’s production base. Oil and gas production volumes both set company records, although low gas prices weighed on the Houston-based producer.

Cash markets on average eased a penny Wednesday as Midcontinent traders noted storage buying and gas volumes were being used for electric power generation. Northeast markets were weak, but Southern California points worked higher. At the close of futures trading May was unchanged at $1.951 and June had inched lower six-tenths of one cent to $2.042. May crude oil had fallen $1.53 to $102.67/bbl.

Boosted by unconventional natural gas and oil, particularly from North America, ExxonMobil Corp. added 1.8 billion boe to its proved reserves base in 2011, replacing 107% of natural gas and production, the company said Thursday.

With ethane prices down more than 30% in January alone, consumers and analysts on the consuming end of the ethane pipeline might be tempted to say the market is moving toward saturation. Not so, said Enterprise Products Partners COO Jim Teague; the bears are “talking their book.

Signs in the natural gas patch that drilling will be slowed or halted in some basins, and reports of decreased pipeline volumes flowing east are being watched out West, but California energy officials for are not concerned about shortages and price spikes on the horizon. Analysts at the California Energy Commission (CEC) said they are not ready to alter any of their forecasts for 2012.

Added gas processing capacity bringing the state’s total to 1 Bcf/d is expected to cut volumes being flared significantly. Currently 34% of North Dakota’s average daily gas production is being flared, but that is slated to change a lot over the course of 2012, according to Industrial Commission spokesperson Alison Ritter.

Southwestern Energy Services Co. (SESC), an anchor shipper on a Millennium Pipeline expansion project that will transport Marcellus Shale gas, has urged FERC to approve the mostly compression expansion of Millennium by Feb. 1 so that it can be in operation by Nov. 1, delivering additional supplies to Northeast and New England markets.