Coming

It looks like bears are roaming the market woods for the holidayseason, said a producer noting new softness in both futures andcash prices Friday. No nay-sayers to her assessment could be foundas sources agreed that weather and storage fundamentals continue tolook weak for the foreseeable future, barring a surprise blizzardor two. A marketer said he “wouldn’t be surprised if we end up withDecember indexes looking a lot like November’s.”

Coming into Tuesday’s session at Nymex traders agreed that oneof two things would happen-prices would either continue to spikelower in follow-though of Monday’s decline, or the market wouldtake a day to catch its breath. Those that cast their vote for thelatter were correct yesterday when the December contract slipped aslight 2.6 cents to settle at $2.279.

Change in the electric industry will mirror what took place inthe gas industry following deregulation and the introduction ofcompetition, particularly with regard to trading, Enron PresidentJeffrey K. Skilling told attendees at Ernst &amp Young LLP’s ninthannual Energy Conference last week in Houston.

Change in the electric industry will mirror what took place inthe gas industry following deregulation and the introduction ofcompetition, particularly with regard to trading, Enron PresidentJeffrey K. Skilling told attendees at Ernst & Young LLP’s ninthannual Energy Conference in Houston Tuesday.

One of the Gas Industry Standard Board’s (GISB) goals in thecoming year will be to drum up participation in the standardsorganization among local distribution companies, while 33 of GISB’s157 members are LDCs – making the industry segment the third mostheavily represented, behind pipelines and service providers – LDCinput into standards development could be greater, conceded GISBExecutive Director Rae McQuade.

Washington Water Power (WWP) and CheckFree plan to makeInternet-based electronic bill paying an option for WWP’s 350,000residential electric and gas customers. By using CheckFree’s E-Billservice, customers will be able to receive full-color WashingtonWater Power bills at no charge — complete with graphics, logos andfull billing detail — through the World Wide Web. Once they haveenrolled, customers can view and pay their Washington Water Powerbills on line. Washington Water Power, whose primary service areacovers eastern Washington, north Idaho, and central Oregon, plansto rollout CheckFree E-Bill in mid-November.

Washington Gas soon will notify its northern Virginia customersof its customer choice pilot. Customers will have the option tochoose from a list of gas suppliers whose names and phone numberswill be included in an October bill insert. A series of communityeducation meetings is planned.

Coming on the heels of a 315,000 Dth/d expansion of its mainlinesystem, Columbia Gulf Transmission announced Monday plans for twoseparate projects that would expand capacity by an additional 1.26Bcf/d. The projects, when combined with the Mainline ’99 expansion,would give Columbia Gulf shippers the capability for the firsttime to ship their Gulf of Mexico supplies directly to growingmarkets in the East, Northeast and Midwest, the pipeline said.

While the abundance of gas now in storage has analystspredicting soft prices in the coming months, others suggest thecharacter of storage operations will be changing as more and moremarketers take title to storage capacity from LDCs. Storage held bylocal distribution companies and power generators typically hasbeen used to ensure supply. Marketers holding storage or optimizingstorage assets under contract with LDCs see storage as a financialopportunity in addition to a supply insurance policy. Thearbitrageurs will handle their storage differently when suppliesget tight, said Pete Kinsella, Columbia Gas Transmission vicepresident of marketing and volume management.