Altra has finally thrown in the towel in the electronic natural gas trading arena. Overwhelming competition over the past few years from a number of different systems, some of which also have been forced out of the business, pressured Altra to announce it will shut down the Altrade system on March 31. All natural gas trades and transactions in the system will continue as scheduled until that date, the company told customers in a letter last week.

“Unfortunately, it is no longer feasible for Altrade to operate the natural gas electronic trading exchange in today’s market,” President Dixie Barrett Paden said in the letter.

Altra said it would maintain and continue to expand its Chalkboard natural gas liquids trading system and back-office natural gas supply and transportation management systems. EnronOnline, IntercontinentalExchange, TradeSpark, HoustonStreet and other electronic trading systems took away significant market share from Altra over the past couple of years.

Altra, which was purchased last year by energy risk management software company Caminus for $62 million, always been strong in back-office management of physical logistics, but at its peak following the acquisition of QuickTrade in January 1999, the company managed 5-6 Bcf/d of gas transactions, 500,000 b/d of liquids and a small but growing amount of electricity trading for a total of about $6 billion/year in energy transactions. With more than 100 customers, including some power and multi-fuel customers, Altra has the largest installed base of systems in the gas market.

Caminus bought Altra last October with an eye on Altra’s new back-office software, which is scheduled for launch this summer. Caminus said it expected to boost its revenues by 40% this year and gain a significantly larger presence in the energy software business with the purchase. At the time of its purchase, Caminus made no mention of shutting down the natural gas trading business.

©Copyright 2002 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.