Conflicting

It is a perfect storm of conflicting economic supply/demand winds in the North American natural gas markets that is fouling the immediate futures of many independent electric generators, and the credit ratings of some of the merchant power firms are suffering, according to an industry report released last Thursday by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P), “U.S. Power Merchants Continue to Suffer from Low Natural Gas Prices.”

Conflicting influences led to mixed prices Friday that were mostly higher in the East and mostly lower in the West. The negative factors of a prior-day drop of nearly half a dollar in February futures, moderate Saturday-Sunday weather in much of the East and the extra loss of industrial load over a holiday weekend were offset to a great extent by forecasts of severe cold in many areas starting early this week and renewed Nymex support Friday.

With conflicting weather forecasts and uncertainty over Thursday’s storage report, traders on Wednesday appeared content to let the range-bound market remain range-bound. Following another failure just above $8, December natural gas drifted lower, ultimately closing at $7.823, up 6.8 cents from Tuesday’s close.

After opening lower in sympathy with weaker cash prices, the natural gas futures market worked its way back to unchanged Monday as traders groped for fair value amid contrasting weather outlooks.

Inconsistent federal policies of encouraging natural gas use for environmental purposes and then restricting access to gas reserves are part of today’s disconnect in supply and demand, which has led to the shut-down of manufacturing plants that can’t pay the high prices, Lee Gooch, head of the Process Gas Consumers (PGC), said last week.

Inconsistent federal policies of encouraging natural gas use for environmental purposes and then restricting access to gas reserves are part of today’s disconnect in supply and demand, which has led to the shut-down of manufacturing plants that can’t pay the high prices, Lee Gooch, head of the Process Gas Consumers (PGC), said earlier this week.

Stemming a three-day, 42.6-cent price slide, natural gas futures turned modestly higher Friday as traders covered shorts ahead of the holiday weekend. There also was the outside chance that tropical activity in the Atlantic and the Caribbean could present a threat to gas production in the Gulf of Mexico this week. The October contract gained 4.6 cents to close at $3.296. By comparison, the gains in the winter strip were larger, led by the January contract, which climbed 8.6 cents to finish back above the $4.00 mark at $4.029. At 50,980, estimated volume in the holiday-abbreviated session was weak.

Feeding off late session gains notched Wednesday, natural gas futures plodder higher Thursday as traders continued to look past bearish fundamental factors to focus on the winter weather forecasts and modestly constructive technical indicators. However, an extremely light estimated volume of just 61,048 limited the market’s upside potential, and as a result, the January contract experienced an “inside-day” on the daily charts with a lower high and a higher low. The prompt month settled at $2.756, up 3.7 cents on the day.

All of a sudden proposed pipeline laterals from New England toLong Island, NY, have become all the craze, as the second pipelineproject in a week was announced yesterday, this time by TennesseeGas Pipeline Co. to serve roughly the same area. The El Pasobusiness unit announced the commencement of an open season for itsConnecticut-Long Island project, which is open for non-bindingnominations until Feb. 28.