Daily

Florida Gas Transmission extended an Overage Alert Day notice through at least Wednesday but loosened the tolerance for negative daily imbalances from 10% to 15%.

In the report on the adjournment of the FERC hearing investigating alleged market affiliate abuses by El Paso Natural Gas and its affiliates, which ran in NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index for Tuesday, Aug. 7: Note El Paso executives did not refuse to respond to questions from Judge Wagner. El Paso attorneys declined to put the executives on the stand — which would have subjected them to questions from the California Public Utilities Commission and others — as part of the case, saying El Paso’s case was closed. The attorneys said, however, the executives were willing to respond to the judge’s questions. Wagner did not ask any questions.

On the heels of its reorganization plan that will split Marathon Oil Co. from parent USX-Marathon Group (see Daily GPI, Aug. 1), the company announced five new officer positions have been created as part of the reorganization, as well as revised titles and responsibilities. All positions will be based in the Houston headquarters and will take effect Jan. 1, 2002. John T. Mills, senior vice president of finance and administration, has been named CFO. Reporting to Mills will be three new vice presidents, including Albert G. Adkins, currently USX comptroller, who will be vice president, accounting and controller. James F. Meara, currently controller for Marathon, will become vice president of taxes and Paul C. Reinbolt, currently US Steel comptroller, will become vice president, finance and treasurer. Also Jerry Howard, currently vice president of taxes for USX, has been named senior vice president of corporate affairs. The corporate affairs division will be in charge of information technology; health, environment and safety; public affairs; state government affairs; and the Washington, DC-based federal government affairs. Kenneth L. Matheny, currently investor relations for USX, has been named vice president, investor relations for Marathon, and William F. Schwind Jr., now general counsel and secretary, will assume the vice president, general counsel and secretary. Mills, Howard, Matheny and Schwind will report to Marathon president Clarence P. Cazalot Jr., who assumes the Marathon CEO position in January.

Tennessee delayed the start of a maintenance outage on its 500 Line, previously set for today (see Daily GPI, July 27), until Monday. Tennessee anticipates restricting and sealing 40-65% of Secondary services through the end of the month at meters upstream of Station 530, and will not accept any nominations at the Lake Borgne meter Aug. 11-23.

Texas Eastern said it had finished valve repairs on its Venice Lateral in the East Louisiana Zone (see Daily GPI, July 26) and brought the line back into service Thursday morning, allowing affected production to resume at scheduled volumes. Shipper imbalances incurred during the brief outage may be made up through the end of the month, Texas Eastern said.

FERC voted out a final rule that imposes a major (price and volume) reporting requirement on natural gas transporters and sellers to California until September 2002 in an attempt to bring gas prices there in sync with other major markets around the country.

August futures were able to manage their first higher daily high in six trading sessions and posted an 8.4-cent gain on the day to reach $3.201 at the end of the truncated holiday trading session at Nymex. The increase was expected by many observers as a continuation of the technical correction this week, but, it is less certain where the market goes from here. Bearish fundamentals abound, but technicals indicate the rally could continue into the mid-$3s.

Carving out a wide 15-cent trading range on the daily charts, prompt month natural gas futures continued its volatile temperament yesterday as traders tested both the upside and the downside. As it turns out, neither thrust attracted much in the way of additional buying or selling, leaving the market to chop sideways to slightly higher Tuesday. July finished at $3.981, up 4.2 cents on the day, but nearly 7 cents below its high trade.

PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest said scheduled Station 3 maintenance (see Daily GPI, April 23) is causing a greater restriction than anticipated. Starting with Thursday’s Intra-day 1 cycle and effective until further notice, Kingsgate capacity was further limited to 2,220 MMcf/d.