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Williams’ Kern River Pipeline has taken action to ensure itscontinued control over market access, completing an agreement tobuy-out a future option on the California portion of the line heldby Southern California Gas. The option would have been exercisablein 2012.

Natural gas is second only to the newly established electricitymarket in terms of volatility, and Tuesday it did little to dispelthat notion as the market dipped momentarily, only to spikedramatically higher in the last 90 minutes of trading, leaving eventhe most weathered of bulls surprised by the advance. Octobersettled at $2.132, a 17.8-cent gain for the day and nearly ahalf-dollar above the $1.63 low established less than two weeksago. Estimated volume confirmed the active trading with over120,000 contracts changing hands.

The futures market roared back to life on Monday, nearlyrecouping losses registered on Friday by trading 6.7 cents higherto settle at $1.945. Traders continued to cite a strong technicaloutlook coupled with increasingly bullish fundamental factors as areason for the advances.

The futures market gave back a portion of recent gains on Fridayas traders covered fresh long positions ahead of the weekend. TheOctober contract was dealt the largest losses, slipping 8 cents tosettle at $1.878. November, which has been tracking nearly pennyfor penny with October was somewhat immune to the decline, losingonly 4.6 cents to $2.161.

All indications pointed to the futures market continuing higheron Wednesday: gains posted in the Tuesday evening Access session, awell bid over the counter market Wednesday morning, and inertiacoming off two days of advances. But when the market openedyesterday a vital component was missing, prompting a beleagueredbull to say “the buyers just didn’t show up [Wednesday] morning.”The September contract meandered down from its open, slipping 2.2cents to close at $2.873.

The dam supporting natural gas futures prices finally burstThursday. After successfully fighting back numerous attempts tofall below major support at $2.11 the last several weeks, the JuneNymex contract succumbed to major selling by funds yesterday, andsettled the day down 10.2 cents to $2.067. Volume was extremelyheavy, with an estimated 93,072 contracts changing hands.

Trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange returned to “morenormal” levels Monday following last weeks GasMart/Power tradeshow, a phenomenon one broker said was reflected in the 4.8 centgain (to $2.215) the June contract posted yesterday. “Cash marketprices were up a dime or so on the weather, and futures traderstook notice,” he said. However, he noted the strength was notenough to forge a settle above major resistance at $2.26, which ledhim to believe “the technical trading range remains.”

Unocal Corp. confirmed its 1998 oil and gas production andcapital spending will be lower than originally anticipated becauseof the lower oil price outlook, but said it would continue toevaluate spending plans throughout the year. Production is expectedto be down 5% from earlier forecasts to 178,000 barrels of oilequivalent (BOE) per day. Capital spending is expected to total$1.30-$1.35 billion, about 10-13% percent below its earlierforecast.

Texas Eastern Transmission resurrected an old war horse toprovide additional service to PECO Energy and new service to MobilOil’s Paulsboro, NJ, refinery.