Downs

Price movement was mixed Wednesday, but there were a lot more downs than ups as an early-week surge of colder temperatures appeared ready to acknowledge that the official start of spring is just around the corner (next week, actually). Declines not only outnumbered the gains, but also were substantially larger in many cases.

After a few roller-coaster ups and downs during morning trading, the July natural gas futures contract spent the afternoon on a steady decline, closing down 9.2 cents at $6.115. Notching its fifth consecutive down day, the prompt month once again approached the psychological $6 level as it reached a low on the day of $6.095.

The ups and downs at Dynegy Inc. continued last week, with a downgrade by Moody’s Investors Services sending the share price below $1 by mid-week. On Friday, however, with the ruling by FERC regarding California (see related story) and an announcement by management that it will detail earnings guidance for 2003 on January 7, investors again were encouraged, moving the meager stock up past a dollar once again.

Dynegy Inc. reported a devastating third-quarter loss of $1.8 billion ($4.92/share) last Wednesday, warned of more writedowns in the fourth quarter, failed to offer any earnings guidance going forward, and finally stunned investors and analysts with no conference call to explain.

After all of the ups and downs in the U.S.’s natural gas markets over the past year, industry experts at the 13th Annual LDC Forum in Chicago last week said they still foresee a 30 Tcf market in the future, but they differ on the expected timeframe. The speakers agreed that the nation’s current infrastructure would need to be beefed up to shoulder the load.

After all of the ups and downs in the U.S.’s natural gas markets over the past year, industry experts at the 13th Annual LDC Forum in Chicago Monday said they still foresee a 30 Tcf market in the future, but they differ on the expected timeframe. The speakers agreed that the nation’s current infrastructure would need to be beefed up to shoulder the load.

Already operating at about two-thirds of capacity,energy-intensive aluminum smelting plants in the Pacific Northwestare facing further cutbacks and plant closings because of highpower prices that have some of the operators looking at developingtheir own natural gas-fired generators. At risk are five companiesand ten smelting plants.

Already operating at about two-thirds of capacity,energy-intensive aluminum smelting plants in the Pacific Northwestare facing further cutbacks and plant closings because of highpower prices that have some of the operators looking at developingtheir own natural gas-fired generators. At risk are five companiesand ten smelting plants.

The cash market was a mix of ups and downs as far as priceaverages went Thursday, but sources agreed that the overall trendwas downward as trading proceeded through the morning. Flat quotesdominated again at many points, while sizeable gains and losseswere scattered.