Away

After almost 18 months of detailed proceedings and negativelegislative signals, California regulators have pulled backsubstantially from original proposals to unbundle the state’snatural gas industry along the lines of its electric deregulation.

Apache Corp. dramatically grew its asset base and shiftedattention away from its poor first quarter financial performancelast week by buying 22 fields in the Outer Continental Shelf of theGulf of Mexico (GOM) from Shell for $715 million and one millioncommon shares of stock. The acquisition will go into effectretroactive to March.

“You can’t win the game if you give the ball away” was aseemingly logical but somewhat superfluous observation made byHoward Cosell on Monday Night Football back in the 1980s. If Cosellwere to have commented on the natural gas futures market yesterday,he probably would have said something like, “The market couldn’tmove lower because there was no additional selling.” And althoughthat comment would also have been redundant, it aptly describes thenature of yesterday’s price action at the New York MercantileExchange, where once early selling dried up, the market was free tobubble higher in near-frictionless trade. The May contract finishedup 3.2 cents to $2.128.

Whether the cash market follows the futures screen or vice-versais the source of considerable conjecture and debate in the naturalgas market-almost on a daily basis. Although there have been timeswhen futures have been the driving force in the market, many feelthat cash prices, egged on by solid heating demand, have liftedfutures prices out of the doldrums this month.

It’s been all talk but no action and as a result industryanalysts are starting to back away from rampant rumors of apotential merger between Southern Co. and El Paso Energy.

It’s been all talk but no action and as a result industryanalysts are starting to back away from rampant rumors of apotential merger between Southern Co. and El Paso Energy.

He who bids and runs away lives to bid another day-and at alower price. That could be the new mantra at Questar Corp. whichannounced a record $546 million capital spending plan for 1999.

A key FERC official backed away Tuesday from the notion thatauctioning is the only way to market short-term pipeline capacityin the future.

While the FERC last week handed the Gas Industry Standards Board(GISB) a much-desired extension of the pipeline industry’s move tothe Internet, a heated debate erupted at the standards-settinggroup’s annual board meeting about whether the Commission wasasking it to tackle standardizing subjects that were “out of thescope” of its role.