Broke

Pressured by selling in Thursday night’s Access trading session,natural gas futures broke to the bottom of its recent trading rangeFriday as sellers liquidated positions ahead of the weekend. Aftergapping lower at the open, the price action was almost entirely inbears’ favor. A brief and ultimately insignificant rally attemptshortly after noon (EST) was all bulls could muster and as a resultprices were left to finish the day on their lows. The Aprilcontract was the hardest hit, dropping 21.3 cents to close at$5.072.

Pipelines and LDCs have urged FERC to take an”if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it” approach to its Order 497regulations that are designed to keep interstate pipes fromfavoring their affiliates, but gas producers believe changes arelong overdue.

Spot gas prices into California broke Daily GPI’s nationwideall-time record high of $39 at the Chicago citygate, set in Feb.2, 1996 trading. A western trader for one marketing firm reported adeal for $41 at the Southern California border Wednesday, saying,”And I’ve got my confirmation from EOL [EnronOnline] to prove it.”California was just part of a hyperpowerful cash market that hadmost points exploring price territory they had never seen before.

In its third auction for bidders both onsite and online, The Oil& Gas Asset Clearinghouse broke its previous one-day auctionrecord, selling $30.9 million of U.S. oil and gas properties in arecent sale.

ONEOK broke ground Friday just north of Oklahoma City on a newnatural gas-run advanced electricity generating plant.The 300 MWplant, which will be owned and operated by ONEOK Power Marketing,will use the latest gas turbine technology to provide electricityfor utilities as well as other purchasers. This marks ONEOK’sfirst venture into the growing natural gas-powered electricitygeneration market. Intended as a “peaking plant,” the facilitywill provide electricity during the summer periods of peak demand.The Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority has already signed acontract to purchase 25% of the plant’s total capacity. ONEOKPresident and Chief Operating Officer David Kyle had this to sayabout ONEOK’s new project, “The natural gas-fueled plant that willbe built here is symbolic of not only a new direction for us, butfor the state as well.” The plant’s site is strategicallypositioned near Oklahoma Gas & Electric’s electric transmissionlines and one of ONEOK’s own natural gas storage facilities. Thegas-burning turbines will be provided by General Electric at anestimated cost of $70 million and will be in operation by thesummer of 2001.

A PG&E Corp. subsidiary broke ground last week on itsmassive La Paloma gas-fired power plant. The 1,048 MW generatingfacility will burn about 150 MMcf/d of gas and will be connected tothe Kern-Mojave Pipeline about 40 miles west of Bakersfield. Itwill be the largest merchant power plant in the state and isexpected to begin operations in summer 2001.

A PG&E Corp. subsidiary broke ground yesterday on itsmassive La Paloma gas-fired power plant. The 1,048 MW generatingfacility will burn about 150 MMcf/d of gas and will be connected tothe Kern-Mojave Pipeline about 40 miles west of Bakersfield. Itwill be the largest merchant power plant in the state and isexpected to begin operations in summer 2001.

In a rumor that first broke late last week, Consolidated Edison(ConEd), a combination utility serving over three million electricand one million gas customers in New York, is reported to be inmerger talks with West Springfield, MA-based Northeast Utilities(NU), the largest electric utility in New England. Neither companywould comment on the subject. The reported stock and cash dealwould value NU at $2.8 billion.

A Williams Gas Pipeline executive last week broke ranks with theinterstate pipeline industry’s generally undivided support forstraight-fixed variable (SFV) rate design, advocating instead amove to a volumetric design. He believes such a rate design will beessential for gas pipelines to meet the needs of power generators,and for the industry as a whole to reach its goal of a 30 Tcfmarket