Arrives

For the second straight session, natural gas futures gapped lower at the opening bell. But in contrast to Monday’s session-long price retreat, the market rebounded Tuesday, pumping life into bulls who are suffering through some mild winter temperatures. The January contract finished at $6.143, down 18.1 cents for the session, but more than 20 cents above its low for the day.

Only a much colder than normal winter would stop gas prices from falling below $4 in the next few months, according to consultant Stephen Smith, who sees a significant supply surplus built into the market because of lasting demand destruction and new supply from non-traditional resources.

Following on the heels of yet another early morning Accesstrading buying surge, natural gas futures pressed higher againMonday as short-term weather forecasts corroborated medium rangeoutlooks that last week called for an invasion of Arctic air notseen in the United States in several years.

The Appalachian Basin consolidation trend continued yesterday asTwinsburg, OH-based North Coast Energy announced it has completedthe purchase of Peake Energy Inc. from North Canton, OH-basedBelden & Blake Corp. for $72.5 million. A spokesman from NorthCoast said the companies have been working on completing this dealfor the past three months. The purchase more than doubles NorthCoast’s production and reserves.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s Eastern Express Project 2000 is a muchdifferent expansion today-mainly much smaller-as it arrives at FERCthan when it was announced more than a year ago. Last winter, thecompany said there was market interest in more than 4 Bcf/d of firmcapacity along nearly every stretch of its system, from the Gulf ofMexico north, from Chicago and Niagara east and from New Hampshiresouth. But Tennessee filed an application yesterday with FERC toadd only 168 MMcf/d of capacity along the northernmost part of itspipeline at connections with PNGTS and Maritimes.

IPL Energy and MCN Energy took the last major regulatory step inadvancing their 1 Bcf/d Vector Pipeline project this week by filingan application with Canada’s National Energy Board forauthorization to construct the 16-mile Ontario portion of the342-mile line. An application for the larger U.S. portion was filedwith FERC in December.