Oil prices rolled back again Mar. 4, with both West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent dropping below their “psychological thresholds” in intraday trading before climbing slightly above those levels prior to market closings.

IHS CERAWeek speakers generally agree the energy industry is entering a transformation period that likely will reshape traditional oil and natural gas supply-demand scenarios worldwide.

Oil prices continued falling Mar. 1 with crude down 3% for the week in the New York market, erasing all previous gains in 2013.

The front-month crude contract steepened its decline to 0.8% Feb. 28 in the New York futures market while North Sea Brent dropped to a 6-week low. Colder weather pushed up natural gas, however.

Global economic growth, North America’s new oil and gas strength, and increasing climate change impacts will have to be carefully juggled through 2050 by industries, governments, academic experts, and environmental and other public interest groups, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said on Feb. 28 as it launched its latest “New Lens Scenarios.”

The front-month crude contract recovered 0.1% Feb. 27 in the New York futures market on a smaller-than-expected gain in US inventory, but petroleum products were down while the new front-month natural gas contract continued to decline.

The automatic budget cuts under the impending federal budget sequestration will adversely affect federal energy activities, warned Heather Zichal, US President Barack Obama’s chief energy and environmental policy advisor.

US Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke “surprised absolutely no one” with his testimony to the US Senate Banking Committee Feb. 26 defending the Fed’s $3.1 trillion balance sheet, reported analysts in the Houston office of Raymond James & Associates Inc.

The US should pursue a diverse energy portfolio, improve the economy’s economic productivity, accelerate innovation and technology improvements across the energy sector, and improve energy policy governance and accountability, the Bipartisan Policy Center said in a new report.

Equity and oil futures prices fell Feb. 25 with crude finishing essentially flat in the New York market, but front-month natural gas jumped 3.7% in colder weather ahead of a major snowstorm across much of the Midwest.

Energy prices generally registered small increases Feb. 22, but oil finished down for the week as a whole.

Crude prices fell sharply for the second consecutive day Feb. 21, with the front-month contract down 2.5% to the lowest level this year in the New York market following a bigger-than-expected jump in the commercial US inventory. The price of crude lost almost 5% in the Feb. 20-21 sessions.