Markets

A leaner Canadian industry is emerging, fit to survive the third straight year of low oil and natural gas prices, Suncor Energy Inc. confirmed Thursday in an investor guidance forecast of 2017 performance.

Coal could beat natural gas on prices and reclaim its spot this winter as the most-used fuel for U.S. electric generation, according to a brief published Friday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Mother Nature threw natural gas markets a bone this week when the mere mention of chilly weather sent December forwards prices up an average 5.5 cents between Nov. 11 and 17, NGI’s Forward Look data shows.

The next global energy transition may pose big risks for Big Oil as world consumption continues to trend toward natural gas and renewables, Wood Mackenzie said Friday.

Both cash natural gas and futures bounded higher Friday. Cash buyers didn’t want to get caught short over the weekend before cooler weather expected to knock close to 20 degrees off recent highs. Speculative futures traders elected to enter the market on the long side.

Weekly traders were able to shrug off another backbreaking rise in natural gas storage and instead concentrated on the arrival of the first shot of a winter-like chill for the week ended Nov. 18. That was enough to send both futures and cash higher by double-digits and the NGI Weekly Spot Gas Average vaulted 24 cents to $2.29.

December futures are expected to open 3 cents lower Thursday morning at $2.73 before release of a government inventory report that is expected to show record levels of natural gas in storage. Weather forecasters are mulling a variety of 11- to 15-day model interpretations. Overnight oil markets rose.

Natural gas futures tumbled to session lows Thursday morning after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a storage injection that was about in line with market expectations.

Staff of FERC’s Office of Enforcement (OE) sought to recover more than $567 million in civil penalties and $45 million in disgorgement through litigation work in Fiscal Year 2016. The most significant shift in the nature of the Division of Investigations (DOI) work during the year was the amount of time spent litigating in federal District Court, OE officials said Thursday.