Converge

As the battle over how best to solve California’s electricitywoes bounces around the regulatory and political halls inCalifornia and Washington, DC, an immovable stumbling block thatcan’t be fixed by new legislation or regulatory decisions is anoverworked electricity highway called “Path 15.”

Despite double-digit physical market increases and an earlyretest of the $2.80 level, natural gas futures tanked yesterday astraders weighed the impact of warm weather forecasts for the firstpart of October. After holding in the high $2.70s for most of themorning Monday, the November contract was hit with a round ofselling in the afternoon that pushed the price 16.8 cents lower toclose at $2.625.

Fueled by stronger cash prices and revised weather forecasts,the futures market erupted higher early yesterday as speculativeand commercial traders added to their positions. However, afternotching the highest mark for a spot month since the week endingDecember 12, 1997 at $2.77, the September contact filtered lower ina quiet afternoon session to settle at $2.721, up 2.3 cents on theday. Estimated volume was light, with 62,221 contracts changinghands.

Not content to converge just with electricity, the gas industryis turning to telecommunications. Specifically, pipelines arefinding their rights of way make sense for the routing offiber-optic telecommunications cable.

Texaco, Shell and Southern California Gas are moving fromopposite ends of the gas business to converge on the developingmarket for distributed generation powered by fuel cells.

Maybe it was the urge to converge that had quotes droppingWednesday for both late-February and March bidweek deals. Theincremental softness remained on the mild side as a few pointsmanaged flat showings and most of the others were down by about anickel or less. Once again the bigger declines of 15 cents or morecame at Northeast citygates as they continued to retreat fromMonday’s cold weather-related price spikes.