Doubt

Feeding off late gains achieved Thursday, natural gas futuresrumbled higher Friday as traders continued to look past theoverwhelmingly bearish short- and medium-term weather outlook tofocus instead on the potential for higher prices this summer. Withthat upward bias, the March contract advanced 5.4 cents to settleat $2.603, just a fraction of a cent below the $2.61 Februarysettle, but nearly a dollar above the $1.666 March 1999 closingprice.

For the second time this fall, Canada’s National Energy Boardhas served notice it will not halt natural gas projects to awaitresolutions of age-old Indian grievances and issued a plea for bothsides to make peace for the good of all concerned. It still is notclear, however, if the new Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline –gassed and ready to go — will actually start operations Dec. 1.

Natural gas futures continued lower yesterday and were able tobreak through a key support level. The June contract finished 4.5cents lower at $2.191 after mapping out a $2.17 low for the day.

Energy traders would do well to fasten their seatbelts for thecontinuing convergence of natural gas and power if the predictionof Coastal Corp. CEO David A. Arledge is correct. Increasingly, theprice of gas – the second most volatile energy commodity – will belinked with the price of power – the most volatile energycommodity, Arledge said.

There’s no doubt about it, times are tough in the midstream gasbusiness. Depressed NGL prices and unfavorable margins have kept atleast one player from selling its assets while the same factorscaused another to seriously rethink the wisdom of a recentpurchase. Executives and analysts predict a lot more horse tradingof properties as companies look to rationalize assets and buildpositions for better times (hopefully) ahead.

Bulls have had very little if anything positive to talk aboutlately with respect to gas prices at the New York MercantileExchange. Mild June temps, a healthy storage level, and amplesupply have weighed on the market since the current downtrend beganon April 9th. So it comes as no surprise that upon the release ofthe less-than-expected 86 Bcf AGA storage injection, bulls sawtheir first opportunity in a while to push the market higher. Thefirst thrust was registered in Wednesday night’s ACCESS session.Then, after opening higher yesterday, the contract traded in a neat5-cent trading range settling at $1.970, up 4 cents for the day.

Viking Gas Transmission, a partner in the Viking Voyageurpipeline expansion project, formally confirmed it has been unableto secure sufficient shipper support for the proposed expansion andis “reviewing its alternatives” on the project with its partners,TransCanada PipeLines and Nicor.