Counts

A habitual securities violator and the former president of an oil and gas company pleaded guilty to six counts of mail fraud related to a ponzi-like scheme in which they paid dividends to existing Texon Energy Corp. investors with money raised from new investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

A habitual securities violator and the former president of an oil and gas company pleaded guilty to six counts mail fraud related to a ponzi-like scheme in which they paid dividends to existing Texon Energy Corp. investors with money raised from new investors, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.

In the first-ever Texas Petroleum Index, which covers oil and natural gas production, drilling, rig counts and employment numbers for the state, economists found signs of solid improvement, but also signs of transformation. The state’s energy sector is once again moving up, but moving away from oil production and toward natural gas, buoyed by sustained higher gas prices.

While natural gas futures trading decisions based on rig counts and data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on gas production and consumption may be easy to explain to a corporate chief risk officer, technical indicators, such as moving averages and stochastics, do a far better job of not only signaling when a price trend is about to turn, but also the size of an impending rally or retreat, said Tom Saal of Miami-based Commercial Brokerage Corp.

While natural gas futures trading decisions based on rig counts and data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on gas production and consumption may be easy to explain to a corporate chief risk officer, technical indicators, such as moving averages and stochastics, do a far better job of not only signaling when a price trend is about to turn, but also the size of impending rally or retreat, said Tom Saal of Miami-based Commercial Brokerage Corp.

Andrew S. Fastow, the 40-year-old former CFO of Enron, is scheduled to be arraigned in Houston on Wednesday (Nov. 7) on 78 counts that accuse him of leading the effort to conceal the company’s losses and debts, as well as inflate the former energy merchant’s trading profits. The indictment lists six different crimes, with the following charges: 36 wire fraud; 36 money laundering; 2 conspiracy to commit wire fraud; 2 conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud; 1 money laundering conspiracy; and 1 obstruction of justice.

As the Energy Information Administration (EIA) counts down to the release of its inaugural weekly storage report during the first week of May, details reveal that the survey and the data produced will borrow some aspects from the American Gas Association’s current report, but on the whole the administration’s report will be very different, according to Roy Kass, EIA’s senior analyst.

Despite record high rig counts, natural gas production is unlikely to add the 1 Tcf in new supplies necessary “to bring some comfort back to the market” this year, PACE Global Energy Services said in predicting gas prices will remain above $5.00 in 2001.

Dominion Resources expects gas price strength to continuethrough next year, but it is making a conservative forecast forrealized prices of about $3.20/Mcf, CEO Thos. E. Capps saidyesterday during a conference call on the company’s third quarterearnings. The company’s production remains about 50% hedged throughthe second quarter of next year.