Bracing

Not to be outdone by the widespread blackouts experienced in the Northeast, Texas was bracing for what could become Hurricane Erika touching down in Brownsville, TX. At presstime Friday evening, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expected Tropical Storm Erika to make landfall in South Texas and Northeastern Mexico as a hurricane.

The energy industry was bracing last week for a sea change in the fate of energy legislation in the U.S. Senate as a result of the sudden Democratic take-over of leadership in that chamber that installs Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) as chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and relegates Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) to the post of ranking minority member.

In what was probably the most bullish 5-cent decline in recent memory, natural gas futures shuffled lower Thursday in a lackluster trading session. At the closing bell, May was 4.7 cents weaker at $5.101.

Spurred on by LDC unbundling and subsequent decontracting,interstate gas pipelines are bracing for a brave new world thatcould portend significant changes in the way capacity is priced andin the types and range of services that will be offered tocustomers in the years ahead, pipeline executives said last week.