After

Amway Corp. and Columbia Energy are taking their retail energyalliance to Ohio this month, three months after testing energymarketing strategies in Georgia. Georgia residents who have chosenColumbia Energy through Amway distributors can save as much as 18%per year on the cost of natural gas, according to Columbia.

After briefly testing resistance in the $2.00 area Wednesdaymorning, the futures market continued its journey lower as traderswere able to look past the short-term bullish impacts of coldweather and associated pipeline operational flow orders to focus onthe longer-term implications of storage and forecasts calling forwarmer weather. The February contract finished 4.4-cents lower at$1.931.

United Cities Gas Co.’s two-inch diameter, 7.2 MMcf per hour gasline that connects with a town border station in Wytheville, VAexploded Sunday morning, destroying a house and business. No onewas killed in the accident, but 1,600 residents of Wytheville hadtheir heat cut off and some have not had it restored. The cause ofthe fire is still under investigation.

After a somewhat subdued trading session Tuesday, natural gasfutures sprang back to life Wednesday in a see-saw battle betweenstorage bears and weather bulls. But, when the dust had settled itwas the bulls who took the day, leading one Houston-based trader tosurmise “weather is always king in natural gas.” The prompt Januarycontract settled up 3.8 cents at $1.99 in the regular tradingsession, before adding an additional 4 cents to finish at $2.03 inlast night’s Access session.

After briefly testing the downside early Friday, January futuresclawed their way higher and briefly broached the $2.00 level in theafternoon. But a late selloff ensued, which chased prices back downto settle at $1.978, a 1.9 cent gain for the day. Estimated volumewas 72,807.

January futures gapped lower on the daily charts for the secondday in a row Tuesday by opening 11 cents less than Monday’s low.But in contrast to Monday’s downward price movement, yesterdayfeatured an upward price trend for the session. At the closingbell, the prompt month had climbed its way back up to $1.958-only1.8 cents off Monday’s settle.

Just eight months after it merged with United Meridian Corp.,Ocean Energy Inc. agreed last week to merge with Seagull EnergyCorp. in a tax-free, stock-for-stock deal creating the 10th largestindependent U.S. oil and gas company based on a pro forma totalmarket equity capitalization of $1.8 billion.

After taking Aquila Gas Pipeline off the auction block inAugust, UtiliCorp United announced plans last week to buy back 5.4million common shares of the company, representing the 18% ofoutstanding AQP common shares it does not already own, for $8 pershare. The price represents a 23% premium to the closing AQP shareprice of $6.50 on Nov. 11.

After trading nearly a dime higher for most of the sessionMonday, the futures market collapsed during the last 20 minutes oftrading amid a flurry of selling that was set in motion bysell-stops and wide cash-futures basis. By the time the dust hadsettled, December’s $2.442 close was 11.1 cents off Friday’s leveland nearly 20 cents from session highs. Estimated volume was arobust 76,481.