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GasKey, a marketer to more than 20,000 residential and smallcommercial customers in Georgia, won the dubious award of being themost complained-about gas supplier in the state last month, theGeorgia Public Service Commission said in a new online report cardpublished earlier this week. GasKey, which recently sold its customersto Georgia Natural Gas Services (GNGS), compiled 45.14 complaints per10,000 customers last month. Second on the list is the now bankruptPeachtree Natural Gas, which received 26.43 complaints per 10,000customers. Shell Energy Services bought Peachtree’s 170,000 customerslast month. The two largest suppliers in the market, GNGS and Scanareceived relatively few complaints, ranking No. 11 and No. 13respectively out of a total of 17 utilities. For more information onthe ranking see the PSC’s web site.

The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) is being sued byCalifornia Gov. Gray Davis, the California Coastal Commission andthe state attorney general’s office for granting extensions on 36offshore oil and gas leases. The extentions were granted two weeksago by DOI Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

Effective gas day today, NGPL may be able to schedule limitedamounts of interruptible gas received in the Permian Zone inSegments 7, 8 or 9 and being delivered outside the Permian Zone.

Although indexes won’t be set until Friday, the bidweek numbersbeing reported to GPI suggest that October prices will reflectmonth-to-month declines of about 30 cents, give or take a fewpennies. A Southwest-oriented marketer said October looked a bitsofter on Wednesday, but a Calgary trader said intra-Alberta priceshad been rising into the low to mid C$3.20s since Monday.

Just as Tropical Storm Bret was being downgraded to a drenchingrain event for South Texas the natural gas futures market wasundergoing a downgrading of its own yesterday, as traders tookprofits in a mid-morning sell-off. However, by mid-afternoon theNational Hurricane Center had anointed the latest two tropicaldepressions-Dennis and Emily-into tropical storms and that wasenough to convince those sellers to become buyers. That was almostenough to recoup the earlier price decline, leaving the Septembercontract to finish the session with only a half-cent loss to$3.059.

Although no panic buttons are being pushed yet, the Kansas CityBoard of Trade (KCBT) is getting increasingly worried about therecent lack of activity on its gas futures contract. There has beenno estimated volume since July 29, and as a result, open interesthas been stuck at 669 positions.

Transwestern’s Bloomfield Compressor Station was hit bylightening at about 9 p.m. Sunday. The station is down, and damageis being evaluated. The outage affects 150,000 MMBtu/d.

For the first time in the last eight quarters, Chesapeake EnergyCorp. of Oklahoma City, OK, turned a profit. The improvement was inspite of decreased production.

The Northeast’s hunger for gas storage could be answered by anew high-deliverability rock cavern technology being developed inSweden. A consortium of U.S. and European companies areparticipating in a project to develop lined rock cavern (LRC)technology. LRC performance is said to be similar to that of saltcavern storage, but it can be located in areas where salt is notgeologically present. The consortium is made up of New York StateElectric & Gas Corp. (NYSEG) and the European companies Gaz deFrance and Sydkraft of Sweden.