Cloudy

While the outlook for North American natural gas activity remains cloudy, executives at Halliburton said Monday they expect margin compression to continue at the drilling services firm, although not as severely as what was seen in the first two quarters.

Despite finally convincing Columbia Energy Group to completelyreverse its position and sell-out for about $72/share, $2/shareless than the previous tender offer, NiSource Inc. still faces asteep uphill battle to get the transaction approved by shareholdersand regulators, and to finance the deal, according to investmentbankers.