Appeared

Shrugging off what appeared on face value to be a bearish natural gas storage report, February natural gas futures on Thursday morning chose to follow the weather story instead, jumping significantly higher following two consecutive days of decline. The prompt month peaked at $6.52 on the session before settling at $6.445, up 50.2 cents from Wednesday’s settle.

Just one day after it appeared that the central Gulf of Mexico would receive the brunt of Hurricane Ivan’s wrath, new forecasts now suggest instead that Florida might be forced to brace for its third powerful storm in a month’s time. The forecast sent natural gas futures sharply lower in afternoon trading Wednesday.

Finding support in the low $4.60s area, October natural gas futures on Friday settled at $4.675, down 9.2 cents on the day. The sell-off appeared to be continuing unabated as traders heading into the weekend seemed unconcerned with the remote possibility that Hurricane Frances could knock out significant Gulf of Mexico production.

San Diego-based Sempra Energy, which two years ago appeared to have a profitable niche selling energy services to large commercial/industrial customers, is looking to sell off that part of its nonutility businesses unless there is turnaround by the end of this year, Sempra CEO Steve Baum told the Deutsche Bank Electric Power Conference in New York City Tuesday.

San Diego-based Sempra Energy, which two years ago appeared to have a profitable niche selling energy services to large commercial/industrial customers, is looking to sell off that part of its nonutility businesses unless there is turnaround by the end of this year, Sempra CEO Steve Baum told the Deutsche Bank Electric Power Conference in New York City Tuesday.

The $700 million Millennium Pipeline appeared dead as recently as last month when the Commerce Department rejected its appeal of a state decision to block the project. The pipeline already has been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Utilizing the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), New York state officials stopped Millennium because of the environmental impact of its Hudson River crossing, which would go through the sensitive Haverstraw Bay area.

The price fires got reignited Thursday in the shivering Northeast, only a day after early-week spikes had appeared to be settling down for the most part. Transco Zone 6-New York City prices topped out at $17.50 in super-volatile trading that saw the same point quoted at less than $9. Other Northeast points saw triple-digit gains in a few cases.

The cash market appeared to brush aside Monday’s second straight screen dive in registering gains Tuesday that were as low as a dime at a few western points, but most often ranged between a quarter and more than 60 cents.

Natural gas futures continued to chop sideways Tuesday as traders appeared hesitant to bet too heavily one way or the other while a major hurricane spins in the Eastern Atlantic and fresh storage data is scheduled for release Thursday. The futures market rebounded modestly as weak shorts covered their Monday afternoon sales. The October contract closed at $4.73, recouping 6.9 cents of the 11 cents it lost in trading on Monday.