Braced

The natural gas and power wholesale market braced for the first day of December deliveries, uncertain of how much of their gas would flow and how much would be affected by the collapse of Enron and its two-year old EnronOnline, which had been the dominant electronic trading system. EnronOnline was back up and running in an extremely limited fashion Thursday, after going dark Wednesday.

California energy officials held their breath Monday and bracedthemselves for what might be the severest test yet for the state’soverworked electricity infrastructure and overheated wholesalepower market.

Fresh off a neat, 13-cent gain Monday, the futures marketrumbled higher yesterday as fundamental traders braced for asizable storage withdrawal today and technicians set their sightson resistance levels from late last year.

Northeast citygates continued to scale new price heightsWednesday as the region braced for another onslaught of what isturning out to be the most severe winter storm of the currentseason by far. Transportation-constrained Transco Zone 6-NYC againtopped the price list with quotes that ran as high as $11, and acouple of sources confirmed that the point had already traded forFriday flow at $13.50. Other citygates in the region were allaveraging more than $5 Wednesday.