Aims

Unable to find a partner with liquidity and stature to boost its own, Dynegy Inc. is winding down contracts and closing down its formerly extensive marketing and trading offices in the United States, Canada and Europe. The former market-maker has mapped a future on the assets it still holds, and will operate them within four entities: power generation, natural gas liquids, regulated energy delivery and communication.

Aquila said last week it plans to target its energy risk management expertise at the ailing fertilizer industry, which has suffered tremendously over the past two years from volatile natural gas prices. Natural gas can account for up to 80% of a fertilizer product’s costs. The company also purchased the proposed Red Lake Storage Project in Arizona from Southwest Gas Corp. last week for an undisclosed sum.

Just as it looked like prices were going to make another assault on the $3.00 level, natural gas futures rebounded yesterday morning in a knee-jerk reaction to reports that a tropical storm had formed in the Gulf of Mexico. While market watchers and traders have been mindful all week about a serious low pressure system bringing rains to Florida, few expected it to develop into a tropical system so quickly. The September contract led the price march higher, finishing 11.1 cents stronger at 3.192. The 12-month strip, meanwhile, lagged somewhat, closing 7.8 cents higher at $3.533. Estimated volume was light with just 52,503 contracts changing hands. As of 5 p.m. EDT Thursday Barry was about 315 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the National Weather Service. It was moving toward the northwest at 4 mph and likely to make a gradual turn to a west-northwest track Friday, NWS said, forecasting “some strengthening” of Barry, which was packing a maximum sustained wind of 45 MPH yesterday evening. A tropical storm is labeled a hurricane when sustained winds have reached 74 MPH.

Canada’s Yukon Territory aims to start a new Klondike rush -this time for natural gas, and oil too if there is any, in Canada’svast northwestern corner next to Alaska.

Canada’s Yukon Territory aims to start a new Klondike rush -this time for natural gas, and oil too if there is any, in Canada’svast northwestern corner next to Alaska.

Retail gas competition in the state of New York clearly needs ajump start, and the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) gaveit one last week. The PSC announced it will force the state’s localdistribution companies to cease selling gas within three to sevenyears.

Despite the growing interest by foreign markets and potentialinvestors in the proposed LNG portion of the Trans-Alaska GasSystem (TAGS), the May 22 deadline set by FERC for start-up of theconstruction of the export project will not be met, says thesponsor of the proposed facility. Yukon Pacific Co. L.P. has askedthe Commission to extend the deadline, which was set back in 1995,until May 2001, saying that a refusal by FERC would be a “serioussetback” and might cause it to abandon the LNG project altogether.