Overview (For the Week Ending Wednesday, November 17, 2010)   

• Natural gas spot prices fell modestly at nearly all domestic pricing points, likely because expectations for colder weather were slow in materializing and storage levels rose again. The Henry Hub price fell 23 cents (about 6 percent) for the week ending November 17, to $3.77 per million Btu (MMBtu).
• The West Texas Intermediate crude oil spot price settled at $80.43 per barrel ($13.87 per MMBtu), on Wednesday, November 17. This represents a decrease of $7.34 per barrel, or $1.27 per MMBtu, from the previous Wednesday.
• Working natural gas in storage set another new all-time record increasing to 3,843 billion cubic feet (Bcf) as of Friday, November 12, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report. The implied net injection for the week was 3 Bcf.
• At the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the December 2010 contract price fell 1.6 cents to $4.030 per MMBtu from the previous Wednesday.
• The natural gas rotary rig count, as reported November 12 by Baker Hughes Incorporated, remained flat at 955 units, representing a 4 percent drop from a peak of 992, recorded August 13, 2010. This drop in gas-directed rigs has been more than offset by a 13-percent increase in oil-directed drilling during the same time period as oil prices edged higher.