Weekly

August natural gas futures closed lower Thursday following the weekly government inventory report showing stocks were built at a greater rate than had been anticipated.

The Fayetteville Shale in northern Arkansas not only appears destined for sustained significant growth well into the future but commands some of the highest shale pricing around. One of the chief signals of these optimistic expectations was the Dec. 1 start-up of service on Fayetteville Express Pipeline (FEP), providing a major addition to takeaway capacity for the shale’s producers.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Tuesday said the department is weighing how it will move forward with a policy requiring producers to disclose the fluids associated with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public lands. Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees 250 million acres, which contains 11% of the nation’s natural gas supply.

Natural gas futures market weakness continued to reign on Monday as the prompt-month contract recorded a two-month low before closing out the regular session at $4.309, down 15.8 cents from Friday’s finish.

The practice of running U.S. business fleet vehicles on compressed natural gas (CNG) continues to gain momentum as evidenced by the deals being announced on almost a weekly basis. The latest involves Clean Energy Fuels Corp. subsidiary BAF, which has received an order from Verizon to convert 501 new Ford E-250 Series vans to CNG power.

The practice of running U.S. business fleet vehicles on compressed natural gas (CNG) continues to gain momentum as evidenced by the deals being announced on almost a weekly basis. The latest involves Clean Energy Fuels Corp. subsidiary BAF, which has received an order from Verizon to convert 501 new Ford E-250 Series vans to CNG power.

The practice of running U.S. business fleet vehicles on compressed natural gas (CNG) continues to gain momentum as evidenced by the deals being announced on almost a weekly basis. The latest involves Clean Energy Fuels Corp. subsidiary BAF, which has received an order from Verizon to convert 501 new Ford E-250 Series vans to CNG power.

Even though the 259 Bcf storage withdrawal last week failed to match the all-time record weekly withdrawal by a mere 1 Bcf, March natural gas futures failed to rally Thursday after the EIA storage report. Instead, the prompt-month traded in a $7.050 to $7.300 range before settling at $7.292, up 5.1 cents from Wednesday.

Coming a day early because of Thanksgiving, the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) weekly storage report Wednesday showed a net 1 Bcf withdrawal for the week ended Nov. 17. The December natural gas futures contract took the report in stride as a number of traders had decided to begin their Thanksgiving holiday a day early. Despite the nonevent, the prompt month retained its earlier losses to close at $7.718, down 27 cents on the day and 46.1 cents lower than the previous week’s close.