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Cash prices Monday recovered all or most of the territory theyhad lost on Friday-and even more in some cases. Buoyed by a sharplyhigher screen and even a bit of re-emerging air conditioning load,cash numbers moved up by about a dime or more at virtually allpoints except Northern California, topped off by scattered gains of20-21 cents. Even crude oil futures, which had been in free-falllate last week, added a little psychological strength by clawingtheir way back above $21/bbl.

Over the weekend Pacific Gas & Electric issued ahigh-inventory OFO with 10% tolerance on positive daily imbalancesfor Sunday but did not continue the OFO Monday.

“It’s been a fun market recently if you like roller-coasters.” AGulf Coast marketer was referring to Thursday pricing that onceagain started significantly lower but later moved higher to settlenear the top end of daily ranges. Softening continued at mostpoints but was very mild compared to the larger drops earlier thisweek. A majority of the declines were about a nickel or less, and afew scattered points even turned in flat performances.

Cash prices continued this week’s slide Wednesday, although thedescent wasn’t as steep as on the day before. Most of the newdeclines were around a dime or slightly more. The few pipes fallingless than a dime tended to be clustered in the Midcontinent.

Cash prices rode the continuing tropical storm news and aninitially higher screen to further gains Wednesday, but there weresigns that the big run-up had just about run its course. Mostincreases in the East were between about a nickel and a dime. Whilethat range also held true in much of the West, northern Californiaonce again tended to outpace the general market with dime-or-moreupticks at Malin and the PG&E citygate.

Arguments likely raged all day Friday over whether the gasmarket was overreacting to Tropical Storm Bret or not. But as evena member of the “overhyped” camp reluctantly conceded, there was nodenying that cash prices ignored mild northern market-area weatherand the usual drop in weekend load to achieve gains of up to adime. The smallest showings of flat to only about a nickel highercame at western points, which are more insulated from potentiallosses of Gulf of Mexico production.

Conoco Inc. elected Archie W. Dunham chairman of the board,succeeding Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. Dunham will continue to serveConoco as president and CEO, as well as chair. Woolard and Gary M.Pfeiffer, a senior vice president and CFO of DuPont, resigned theConoco board as planned, at the conclusion of the company’ssplit-off from DuPont. Woolard is a former DuPont chairman, and hadbeen chairman of Conoco’s board since July 1998. He remains aDuPont director. Concurrent with his election as Conoco chairman,Dunham steps down from the DuPont board. The moves create twoadditional vacancies on Conoco’s board. The company said it expectsthese vacancies to be filled in the near future.

Convergence is going to continue in the energy industry becauseit is what customers and financial markets want; the market signalsare unmistakable, according to an industry representative and aninvestment funds manager.

Peoples Energy said it was “extremely disappointed” in orders byIllinois Commerce Commission (ICC) that would sharply reduce thegas rates the LDC and affiliate North Shore Gas could charge theircustomers under fixed-price plans filed last fall. The utilitiessaid they cannot accept the ICC rulings and informed the agencythat they will remain instead under their existing pricingstructure.