Anything

Think anything but gas is the way to go for the energyindustry’s future? Forget about it. Gas is where it’s at and whereit will continue to be for some time, Coastal CEO David Arledgetold a room full of producers in Houston at the Texas IndependentProducers &amp Royalty Owners Association’s (TIPRO) luncheon lastweek.

Think anything but gas is the way to go for the energyindustry’s future? Forget about it. Gas is where it’s at and whereit will continue to be for some time, Coastal CEO David Arledgetold a room full of producers in Houston at the Texas IndependentProducers & Royalty Owners Association’s (TIPRO) Tuesdayluncheon yesterday.

With demand rising in southern California and its pipes too fullto do anything about it, Transwestern Pipeline Co. is holding anopen season through Dec. 18 to solicit shipper interest in apossible mainline expansion. The pipeline is exploring theconstruction of a compressor station near Gallup, NM, that willincrease mainline capacity to the California border by 140,000Dth/d. The cost of the expansion is estimated at $15-$20 million.

It’s nearly impossible to get the various gas industry sectorsto agree on anything, but some already are putting out signals they might band together to send FERC the clear and unmistakablemessage they don’t like its capacity-auction proposal.

Heat makes air and various other gases rise, but it was able todo little if anything to prevent a general rout in natural gas cashprices Tuesday. Decreases straddled the dime level at the greatmajority of points even as heat waves continued to sear much of thenation and sparked some $1,000-plus hourly prices per MWh in somepower markets.

Bulls have had very little if anything positive to talk aboutlately with respect to gas prices at the New York MercantileExchange. Mild June temps, a healthy storage level, and amplesupply have weighed on the market since the current downtrend beganon April 9th. So it comes as no surprise that upon the release ofthe less-than-expected 86 Bcf AGA storage injection, bulls sawtheir first opportunity in a while to push the market higher. Thefirst thrust was registered in Wednesday night’s ACCESS session.Then, after opening higher yesterday, the contract traded in a neat5-cent trading range settling at $1.970, up 4 cents for the day.