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Cash prices staged a broad-based retreat Monday, giving up 3-5cents at most Eastern points with Western declines tending to belarger at a nickel or more. The market lost some of last week’sfundamental support as a warming trend started to develop in theWest, sources said. In addition, although the Henry Hub futurescontract for May later reversed field and achieved an overall gainfor the day, its weakness in the morning rubbed off on cashtrading.

Although like the rest of the industry, Houston-based PogoProducing Co. has been wrangling with super soft commodity prices,the company is wading deeper into the Gulf of Mexico with a focuson future growth.

FERC last week put off making a final decision on the merger ofTopeka, KS-based Western Resources Inc. and Kansas City Power &ampLight (KCP&ampL), citing potential competitive concerns. It set theproposed combination of the Midwest electric utilities for anevidentiary hearing on issues involving market power and customerprotection.

“Where has all the gas gone now?” asked a Houston-based marketerTuesday as April numbers turned upward going into the home stretch ofbidweek. He was starting to encounter some tightness of supplies inthe Gulf Coast and Appalachian production areas that caused prices tobe bid higher. Echoing a producer’s Friday observation (see Daily GPI, March 29), the market suspectedthat reduced drilling budgets last year may be reflected now in afirmer gas market.

East Tennessee Natural Gas, a unit of Houston-based El PasoEnergy, is holding an open season for incremental capacity alongits mainline in Tennessee and Virginia. The proposed expansionwould entail construction of mainline pipeline, compression andrelated facilities. Service is targeted to begin Nov. 1, 2000.

Enron Capital and Trade Resources currently is negotiating adeal with a Lincoln, NE-based nonprofit joint power agency to sellit wholesale bulk, multi-year gas supplies so the agency can inturn sell them at below-market prices to municipal utilities inCalifornia and other states. Brokered through the American PublicEnergy Agency (APEA), supplies would be paid for in advance atdiscounted prices using the APEA tax-exempt financing capability.

Huntsman Corp., a Texas-based chemical company with $5 billionin revenues, selected Reliant Energy to supply gas to 10manufacturing facilities for $250 million. For competitive reasons,Reliant did not disclose the length of the contract or how much gaswill be supplied. It did say the contract has already gone intoservice.

Enron Capital and Trade Resources currently is negotiating adeal with a Lincoln, NE-based nonprofit joint power agency to sellit wholesale bulk, multi-year gas supplies so the agency can inturn sell them at below-market prices to municipal utilities inCalifornia and other states. Brokered through the American PublicEnergy Agency (APEA), supplies would be paid-for in advance atdiscounted prices using the APEA tax-exempt financing capability.

Houston-based Kimball Trading and Kimball Trading Canada ofCalgary, two of the Kimball Companies, last week filed for Chapter11 bankruptcy protection in Houston. The move caused marketrepercussions last Thursday, the day after the filing, as Kimballhalted gas flows to customers. The bankruptcy filings do notinvolve the related Kimball Resources or the other KimballCompanies.