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Come April Fool’s Day it will be no joke. Nearly 200,000 Georgianatural gas customers who haven’t paid their winter heating billsrisk losing their service, and the threat is so real that theGeorgia Public Service Commission (PSC) is warning consumersdelinquent in their payments to contact their marketers now. ThePSC’s moratorium on nonpayment shutoffs, enacted Jan. 17, expiresthe first day of next month.

For the fourth morning in a row, gas futures spiked higher onlyto come crashing down as long traders liquidated their positions inan effort to avoid margin calls on their positions. Includingyesterday’s margin hike, the exchange has raised margins on fivedifferent occasions in the past three weeks, resulting in anincrease for its customers from $5,670 (on Nov. 17) to $13,500.

If new natural gas production does not come on-stream in Mexicoin the next two to three years, the country will have to importmore than half of its gas needs, according to a new report from thecountry’s energy regulator Comision Reguladora de Energia. Thecountry now imports about 7% of its gas, mostly from South Texas.

In an effort to hold off power supply shortages until largerelectricity generating plants come online, the New York PowerAuthority (NYPA) reported that it has selected sites within NewYork City for nine of 11 natural gas-burning generators itpurchased from General Electric Packaged Power.

The recent string of record warm winters may come to a closethis winter, as normal (cold) weather is likely to return,according to predictions from top weather experts at the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Salomon SmithBarney.

The recent string of record warm winters may come to a closethis winter, as normal (cold) weather is likely to return,according to predictions from top weather experts at the NationalOceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Salomon SmithBarney.

Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) has come up with a novel wayof solving its capacity turnback problem with a service providingfirm hourly flexibility, but customers, particularly New EnglandLDCs, aren’t buying it.

Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) has come up with a novel wayof solving its capacity turnback problem with a service providingfirm hourly flexibility, but customers, particularly New EnglandLDCs, aren’t buying it.

Yukon Pacific Corp. has come up with a “slightly new twist tosupplement” its long-standing project to supply Asian markets withAlaskan liquefied natural gas (LNG), and in fact company executiveswere in Mexico yesterday to sound out officials there about it.