Bound

Williams’ Buccaneer Gas Pipeline was the first to file anunderwater Florida-bound project with the FERC on Sept. 30 (see DailyGPI, Oct. 1), but Coastal Corp.’scompeting Gulfstream Natural Gas System moved to the lead today,filing its project three days after Buccaneer’s filing was rejected ontechnical grounds. The FERC told Buccaneer to come back with acomplete filing.

El Paso Natural Gas President Richard Baish said the pipelinerejected all of the bids for available California-bound capacity onits system during the second open season, which ended yesterday.

Dynegy’s California-bound capacity on El Paso Natural Gas wentup for grabs last week, and while the pipeline expects a possiblestampede of customers, they aren’t expected until nearly the end ofthe auction period. With a right-of-first refusal held by Dynegy,bids for the capacity are expected to be higher than last time,too.

After a choppy week of range-bound trading, bulls foundthemselves in the driver’s seat Friday at the New York MercantileExchange when weather forecasts and technical factors came intoagreement. Given the opportunity it didn’t take long forspeculators, comprised mostly of local traders, to become buyers inan attempt to push the August contract through resistance tobuy-stop orders that they knew were waiting in the $2.21-22 area.However, what they failed to realize was that there wasconsiderable commercial selling waiting there as well, it proved tobe more than enough to satiate the buying demand. The Augustcontract notched a $2.225 high shortly after 1 p.m. (EST) only tocome crashing back to settle at $2.187, an 0.8-cent advance for thesession.

While Questar continues preliminary work on its California-boundmainline, Kern River Pipeline has put its plans to run a newlarge-diameter pipeline into Southern California on hold, awaitingregulatory action from the dilatory California Public UtilitiesCommission.

While Questar continues preliminary work on its California-boundmainline, Kern River Pipeline has put its plans to run a newlarge-diameter pipeline into Southern California on hold, awaitingregulatory action from the dilatory California Public UtilitiesCommission.

For the third session in a row, natural gas futures see-sawed toeither side of unchanged yesterday as traders eschewed eitherbuying or selling the market outside of its recent trading range.After etching out a $2.34 low Tuesday morning, speculative buyingwas once again seen trying to push the July contract throughresistance at $2.40. But resistance held and the contract sank backto finish at $2.367, a 0.5-cent decline on the day.

The controversial Northeast-bound Independence Pipeline andMillennium Pipeline have won draft environmental acceptance at theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission, giving both the first bit ofencouraging news since the project applications were first filed.But the projects may not turn out as originally designed.

The controversial Northeast-bound Independence Pipeline andMillennium Pipeline have won draft environmental acceptance at theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission. This was good news for bothpipelines, which have been beset by unprecedented landowneropposition and questions about the “need” for the projects.