Assess

Southern California Gas declared a high-linepack OFO for Saturday, saying it would assess Buy-Back charges in accordance with its rules and tariffs to customers who delivered into its system more than 110% of their actual gas usage on the OFO day.

Because of high linepack, Southern California Gas declared an OFO effective with Timely Cycle nominations for Saturday. The LDC said it would assess Buy-Back charges in accordance with its rules and tariffs to those customers who delivered into its system more than 110% of their actual gas usage.

Southern California Gas declared an OFO on Timely Cycle nominations for Saturday. The tolerance for excessive deliveries into its system was 10%. The LDC said it would assess Buy-Back charges to violators in accordance with its rules and tariffs. A spokeswoman said the OFO also applied to Friday’s Intraday 1 nominations.

Adding to losses etched in Thursday’s abbreviated session, the natural gas futures market continued lower Friday as buyers appeared content to wait for sub-$5.00 prices before re-entering the market.

Greased by a higher opening, the natural gas futures market worked its way efficiently higher Friday as modest, but steady local and speculative short-covering promoted prices to their highest close in nine months. In addition to the chilly weather forecasts for the middle and end of the month, the market was rocked again Friday by the third increase in Nymex margin requirements in the last week. The January contract exploded 60.6 cents higher Friday to finish the week at $7.221.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) said last Monday it was unable to determine conclusively if energy executives and companies may have influenced the drafting of the Bush administration’s national energy policy due to the successful efforts of Vice President Dick Cheney and other energy task force members to stall its investigation.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) said Monday it was unable to determine conclusively the extent to which energy executives and companies may have influenced the drafting of the Bush administration’s national energy policy due to the successful efforts of Vice President Dick Cheney and other energy task force members to stall its investigation.

On their first day as prompt contract at Nymex, September natural gas futures had a little something for both bull and bear. While keeping the downtrend intact by notching another lower-low on the daily chart, the contract managed to post a gain for the session — something the August contract failed to do in each of its last three trading days. September finished at $4.668 Wednesday, up 3 cents from Tuesday’s close. At 49,012, daily trading volume has shrunk as it typically does in the middle of summer.

Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. has begun a non-binding open season through August 11 to assess market interest in additional firm capacity, which would be created by its proposed Freedom Trail expansion project. The project is scheduled to begin service in 2006. The proposed project is designed to increase mainline capacity on Tennessee’s Line 200 located in New York and Massachusetts by 50,000 to 150,000 Dth/d, with up to an additional 40,000 horsepower of compression and up to 40 miles of new pipeline looped along existing right of way. Freedom Trail would enable customers in the Northeast to access various supply points along Tennessee’s system including market and supply area storage, the Gulf of Mexico (Zones 0 and 1), and the Niagara Interconnect with TransCanada Pipeline. The incremental capacity would provide service to New England as well as New York City and/or Long Island via deliveries to existing and proposed downstream pipelines directly serving these markets. To obtain open season request forms and guidelines, contact Jim Scabareti at (617) 217-2115 or at jim.scabareti@elpaso.com.