natural

Light, sweet crude oil for April delivery finished up 3.5%, or $3.44 to $101.42 a barrel. In other energy futures, heating oil was up 1.31% to $3.05 a gallon while natural gas was down 0.15% to $3.93 per million British thermal un

Meanwhile, gold futures rose, helped by a weaker dollar

Gold for April delivery finished up $8.10 to $1,404.20 an ounce.

Commodities ended trading mostly higher as crude oil and gold futures finished in positive territory on news that work to control the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan made progress.

Oil production in Q4 was 161,279 barrels, a 19% increase sequentially from 135,473 barrels in Q3. The total number of wells in production as of December 31, 2010 were 295 compared to 289 wells in production as of December 31, 2009

Its unit Tiancheng, completed drilling contracts for 35 wells with total drilling depth of 61,935 meters (203,199 feet) in Q4.

China North East Petroleum (NEP) says crude oil production for the full year 2010 totaled 723,154 barrels, a 20% decrease from 2009.

Under the terms of the definitive agreement, each common share of the company will be transferred to Magnum Hunter for the right to receive 0.0846 of a share of Magnum Hunter common stock.

NGAS Resources (NGAS) announced a definitive agreement with Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation (MHR) providing for NGAS Resources to be acquired by Magnum Hunter in an all-stock transaction. NGAS Resources is a British Columbia c

International Coal (ICO) is up after Bloomberg reports that Massey Energy (MEE) is considering its options, which include selling itself or taking over ICO. Massey's discussions with ICO, which started early this year, resumed aga