By Steve Gelsi, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - Shares of natural gas producers and oil service firms led gains among energy stocks on Friday to finish out a positive week for the sector, as Wall Street digested a string of major earnings updates from General Electric, Bank of America and others.
Marathon Oil (MRO 30.26, +0.12, +0.40%) and EnCana (ECA 50.81, +0.88, +1.76%) both rose on hefty deals to sell assets, while bullish housing construction data helped encourage mild optimism surrounding the economy.
The NYSE Arca Oil Index (XOI 918.68, +0.11, +0.01%) inched higher to close at 919. Shares of component Exxon Mobil (XOM 68.52, +0.06, +0.09%) rose 6 cents to $68.52. The index of major oil producers and refiners is well above the 854 at which it ended a week ago.
The NYSE Arca Natural Gas Index (XNG 425.55, +2.72, +0.64%) rose 0.6% to 426, with component XTO Energy (XTO 38.99, +0.86, +2.26%) up 2.3% to $38.99.
The Philadelphia Oil Service Index (OSX 164.63, +1.27, +0.78%) rose 0.8% to 164.
Marathon Oil agreed to sell a 20% stake in its Block 32 off the coast of Angola for $1.3 billion to a pair of Chinese companies -- Cnooc Ltd. (CEO 127.81, +2.00, +1.59%) and Sinopec (SNP 83.00, +0.85, +1.03%) . Shares of Marathon Oil rose 0.4% to $30.26.
EnCana Corp. said late Thursday it would sell for $632 million to Bonavista Energy Trust 409,000 net acres of non-core natural gas and oil producing properties. "This sale reflects our ongoing efforts to high-grade our portfolio of producing assets and it represents a substantial portion of our 2009 divestiture target of between $500 million and $1 billion," Calgary, Canada-based EnCana said.
Separately, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS .A 50.10, -0.14, -0.28%) said it would pay an undisclosed sum to buy the Canadian natural-gas and power-customer contract portfolio of Integrys Energy Group Inc. (TEG 31.27, +0.51, +1.66%) . Shares of Shell fell 14 cents to $50.10, while Inegrys rose 1.7% to $31.27.
Shell Energy North America will fold the company's business into its natural gas, wholesale power, environmental products and risk management units.
