Coralconnect.com, Coral Energy’s e-business web site, jumpedinto the online energy trading fray yesterday when it announced anexpansion of its services to include the buying and selling ofcertain gas contracts.

Under the newly expanded service, registrants of the site willnow be able to make term gas deals with Coral, whereas before theycould only alter their own existing Coral contracts. Besides theterm deals, coralconnect.com is also beginning to offer Nymex andbasis financial transactions as well.

The move is being advertised as a complement to the informationcontent provided on the site. “We built coralconnect.com as ane-business platform that will continually offer greater transactioncapabilities,” said Charlie Crisp, Coral CEO. “Equally important isthe site’s rich energy information content, which we believe isunsurpassed in variety, depth and ability to be customized.”

The information side of the package was also improved, Coralsaid. The site’s interactive graphing interface, budget pricecalculator, news and weather information features were all enhancedand expanded.

“We expect the site traffic to increase with additionalcustomers performing transactions and taking advantage of thesite’s unique features,” said Crisp. “Our next steps will includeexpanded transaction capabilities and additional energycommodities.”

One addition to look for in the near future is the ability tostrike shorter-term deals through the site. “Right now, intradaydeals or week-long deals are not available, but we’re working onthat,” said Jimmy Fox, a Coral spokesman.

Coralconnect.com was launched last November (see Daily GPI, Nov. 18). It was developed with theobjectives of increasing the quality of customer service and enhancingbusiness development. Cisco Systems helped develop the platform. Evenwithout the ability to buy and sell commodity, nearly 2,000 membershave now registered at the site and 3,000 data requests are receivedper week, Coral said.

The expansion of coralconnect.com is coming at a time of radicalchange to the online energy transaction landscape. Last week, agroup of major players in the energy and financial industriesannounced plans for a global, over-the-counter energy tradingplatform called IntercontinentalExchange. The exchange will hostmultiple buyers and sellers and will be free to users. Although theinitial service will not trade gas or power, the group plans to addthose commodities in the near future.

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