Weekly

Spot natural gas prices sputtered slightly over the course of the past week, as forecasts turned modestly cooler. NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas National Avg. lost 4.5 cents to $1.685 for the July 13-17 trading period. While the heat outlook eased to start the week, losses were minimal as the week wore on with forecasters continuing…

Spot prices surged over the course of the week as robust heat stretched across the country, with highs reaching into the triple-digits over swaths of Texas and the Southwest. Strong cooling demand propelled weekly spot gas prices for the July 6-10 period. NGI’s Weekly Spot Gas National Avg. advanced 22.0 cents to $1.730. Though forecasts…

Bakken crude oil rail shipments traverse 32 of North Dakota’s 53 counties on a weekly basis, and some counties have up to 45 crude-bearing trains pass through their boundaries weekly, according to a white paper released Thursday by an analyst at Genscape, the commodity and energy markets data gathering firm.

Natural gas prices fell about 6 cents on average nationally on Thursday for Friday delivery, with soft power prices aiding the double-digit declines at California points. Rocky Mountain and other western points were also weak.

Natural gas spot prices, which averaged $2.75/MMBtu at the Henry Hub last year and $3.33 last month, are expected to climb to an average of $3.41 this year and $3.63 in 2014, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

New wells in the nation’s shale plays helped push natural gas production higher in Texas and some other states in August, but it wasn’t enough to keep the U.S. total from sliding to 76.60 Bcf/d, a 3.4% decline compared with 79.33 Bcf/d in July, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production report.

Domestic natural gas production will be at an all-time high this year and is expected to break that record for a third consecutive year in 2013, thanks in large part to the nation’s booming shale plays, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Short Term Energy Outlook for September.

Will the natural gas industry have excess supply and delivery infrastructure frantically searching for demand in the next decade or is the oversupply not what it seems? The competing views came from two industry experts at the LDC Gas Forum: Rockies & West meeting in Los Angeles last Tuesday.

September natural gas managed a modest gain Wednesday as traders positioned themselves ahead of the weekly inventory report. For every trader anxious to cover a short position there seemed to be another willing initiate a new sale. At the close September had risen nine-tenths of a cent to $4.003 and October added nine-tenths of a cent as well to $4.024. September crude oil rebounded from steep losses in the last two sessions, adding $3.59 to $82.89/bbl.