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Buoyed by a late short-covering rally natural gas futuresstruggled back up to just below unchanged yesterday as traderschose to wait on the sidelines ahead of the release of freshstorage data. The closing up-tick was the only feature bulls couldstomach in a market preoccupied by continued mild weather acrossmuch of the country. The February contract finished down 0.8 centsat $2.168 following a session that saw prices match Tuesday’s $2.20high but plumb a half-cent below Tuesday’s $2.13 low.

While it is still too early to see if others in the industrywill follow the lead, Sempra Energy is not looking back afterdropping out of four major energy trade associations at year-end.Strategic direction, as much as cost-savings, was the key driver inthe $5 billion holding company’s decision, according to a seniorexecutive responsible for implementing the new direction. The moveis expected to save Sempra several million dollars annually in duesand expenses related to its employees’ participation.

A number of utility and industrial customers in Wisconsincontinue to register their support for the proposed GuardianPipeline, which — if built — would offer the state its firstglimpse of gas pipeline competition.

Reliant told shippers Wednesday that an Operational Alert has been lifted, so imbalance tolerances are back to normal (see Daily GPI, Dec. 21). Reliant also said it now expects an outage of the electric unit at Buckley Compressor Station north of Shreveport, LA (see Daily GPI, Dec. 14) to last through the end of February 2000.

A number of utility and industrial customers in Wisconsincontinue to register their support for the proposed GuardianPipeline, which — if built — would offer the state its firstglimpse of gas pipeline competition.

FERC last week awarded Southern LNG Inc. a preliminarydetermination (PD) on the non-environmental aspects of its proposalto build new facilities and re-activate its liquefied natural gasterminal on Elba Island, GA to handle imports equaling 330 MMcf/d.

Carolina Power and Light (CP&L) scaled back its plans toserve the budding electricity load in North Carolina yesterday byannouncing the replacement of its $175 million interstate PalmettoPipeline proposal with a $100 million 82-mile intrastate pipelineproject. The integrated energy company plans to build the new pipebetween Iredell and Richmond counties to serve an electric powerplant soon to be under construction. If CP&L gets its way, thenew pipe will be in service by the spring of 2001.

After a lengthy absence, “following the screen” was back invogue Friday among trader explanations for cash market movement.”How else are you going to justify rising Northeast prices for whatis normally a lower-demand weekend period?” asked a largeaggregator. A stormy front was moving beyond the East Coast intothe Atlantic, but the temperatures it left behind were still on themild side for December, he observed.

Producers and marketers have asked FERC to send Natural GasPipeline Co. of America (NGPL) back to the drawing board to makethe changes to its auction tariff procedures that were ordered bythe Commission.