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Dynegy announced that Stephen W. Bergstrom has been namedpresident and chief operating officer of Dynegy Inc. Bergstrom wasformerly president and chief operating officer of Dynegy Marketingand Trade and senior vice president of Dynegy Inc. He has served asa member of Dynegy’s board of directors since 1995.

Gas buyers could have been forgiven Monday for modifying apopular movie’s catchphrase and screaming, “Show me the weather!” Autility buyer reporting “beautiful” conditions outdoors in theNortheast said it seemed odd that prices could continue to rise inthe face of moderate weather in most major market areas outside theSouth. Cash quotes ranged from flat to barely higher at Northeastcitygates to as much as 15 cents up at the PG&E citygate. Mostgains tended to be on either side of a nickel.

There appears to have been a minor shake-up at the Natural GasSupply Association (NGSA) last week. It came during Skip Horvath’sfirst week as president of the producer group that’s still reelingfrom the effects of an embezzlement scandal uncovered earlier inthe year.

KN Energy has been cleaning house and started a corporate yardsale yesterday with tags on everything but the kitchen sink.Although it wouldn’t estimate the total value of the assets beingsold, the list is long and encompasses properties and assets innearly every division of KN’s operations.

An outage of the TransCanada Midstream Caribou Gas Plant thatwas scheduled Aug. 3-5 has been canceled, according to a WEI FieldServices posting on the Westcoast bulletin board.

It’s been a year since the completion of its C$11 billion mergerwith Nova Corp., but TransCanada Pipelines finally came through onpromised savings yesterday. The pipeline company said it will give$70 million in merger-related savings to its pipeline customersthrough “targeted operating cost reductions.” An agreement on thereductions was filed with Canada’s National Energy Board and theAlberta Energy and Utilities Board yesterday.

The geographic divide between gas markets seldom has been moredistinctive than it was Friday. Opposite corners of the U.S.represented the extremes: Northeast citygates skyrocketed by nearly20 cents while the OFO-hit Southern California border plunged byabout 20 cents. In general it was another case of East being Eastand West being West, and the twain had almost nothing in common.

Northern Natural Gas said it lifted a System Underrun Limitationthat had been posted for Tuesday and today.

Activity in the natural gas pit at NYMEX has beenuncharacteristically quiet recently with low volatility and sub-5cent trading ranges the rule rather than the exception. In fact,the only real excitement in the past couple of weeks came Mondaywhen the July contract bounced 3 cents in a late rally. But eventhat was quickly dismissed by many traders who considered itnothing more than a freak, expiration-day anomaly in an otherwisesubdued market. Enter the August contract, which wasted little timeyesterday in moving dramatically higher in a rush of speculativeand commercial buying. The newly crowned prompt month finished up7.6 cents for the session at $2.400.