Arrest

EnCana Corp. is offering up to $500,000 for information directly leading to the arrest and prosecution of the party responsible for recent bombings at company facilities in the Tomslake area near Dawson Creek, BC.

The development of new technologies may stem and possibly reverse the amount of natural gas used in the production of Canadian oil sands, freeing up more gas to be exported to the United States in the coming decade, the head of a major Canadian producer group said.

A federal warrant was issued Thursday for the arrest of a single suspect identified as being involved in at least one of two incidents of tampering with Western Grid transmission tower footings about 150 miles apart in southeast Oregon and northern California last Monday.

With its intraday bar chart looking like the EKG of a cardiac arrest patient who didn’t make it, the natural gas futures market followed Thursday’s heart-stopping price drop with flat-line trading activity Friday. On its first day as prompt month at Nymex, the August contract closed 4.8 cents lower at $5.362. At 47,013, estimated volume was extremely light.

Repealing a portion of the gains achieved in last week’s four-day price rally, natural gas futures shuffled lower Friday, as traders pressured prices lower in sympathy with softer weekend cash market values. The November contract closed at $2.43, down 10.1 cents for the session, but 20.3 cents above its closing point from the week prior. Estimated volume was again healthy for a Friday, as 65,418 contracts changed hands.

Following Wednesday’s 50-cent plus sell-off, natural gas futuresfound at least a temporary bottom yesterday as traders got a headstart covering shorts before the holiday weekend. Gains were almostuniform across the board as buyers spread buying across all of thecontracts. The 12-month strip advanced 6.7 cents to close at $5.579and the March contract finished 7.6 cents stronger at $5.594.

An Arctic cold front spreading through the nation’s midsectionwas enough to arrest a late December slide in cash prices Tuesday,at least in Eastern markets, which tended to be flat to slightlyhigher. But except for essential flatness at Waha and the PermianBasin, most of the West fell by about a dime or more, topped by adrop of almost 30 cents at Stanfield.

Enough cold weather was either arriving or developing Tuesday inthe northern and western regions of the U.S. to arrest, at leasttemporarily, the mild price slide that had begun the week. For achange there was remarkable cross-market consistency in thatvirtually all points traded flat to up or down a couple of cents.