Drives

Anticipation of an even larger gas storage withdrawal this week and higher cash prices have continued to prompt short covering and draw additional buying interest into the futures market. The May contract added 10.1 cents on Tuesday, closing at $5.653 with a high of $5.695, and the out-months made even steeper gains.

Getting a huge prod from Nymex, the bulls stampeded in the cash market Thursday. Gains of about 20 cents or more were common in all regions. The larger increases on either side of 30 cents were in the Rockies/Pacific Northwest, home to much of what little remains of the recent frigid spell.

Colder weather was coming into the Midwest and Northeast while starting to recede along the West Coast, and prices reacted Friday pretty much as one might expect given those conditions. The Southwest basins joined all eastern points in registering gains of about 20 cents or more in virtually all cases. Meanwhile, California and the Pacific Northwest ranged from flat to about a dime lower, while the still-snowy Rockies market was kind of in-between with increases ranging from a dime to a little over 20 cents.

Technological changes and the natural gas industry probably willdo more to push electric industry restructuring than Congress orfederal regulators ever do, according to Washington, DC-basedrepresentatives for a national group for large energy consumers andthe electric utility industry’s trade association, speaking at theGasMart/Power 2000 meeting in Denver earlier this month.

Technological changes and the natural gas industry probably willdo more to push electric industry restructuring than Congress orfederal regulators ever do, according to Washington, DC-basedrepresentatives for a national group for large energy consumers andthe electric utility industry’s trade association, speaking at theGasMart/Power 2000 meeting in Denver last week.

Energy restructuring and other market forces have become driversfor the federal government’s almost decade-old effort to greatlyreduce Uncle Sam’s overall $4 billion utility bill, the director ofthe Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) told an industryaudience gathered last week in a Los Angeles suburb. As a result,the feds this year should meet their goal set in 1993 to reduceoverall federal facility energy use by 20%, said FEMP Director BethShearer.

Certainly not BP’s Browne, who offered a litany of E&ampPtechnology advances. “In real terms, oil prices today are more than40% below where they stood a decade ago and comparable to levelslast seen before the Yom Kippur War 25 years ago. The reason we’reall still in business is that average finding, development andlifting costs have all fallen – on average by almost a third inreal terms over the last decade.”

With the exception of Western and Rockies delivery points,natural gas prices began the new week flat or leaning downward acouple of cents. There was support resulting from supplyconstraints in the San Juan Basin and forecasts for above normaltemperatures in the Rockies. However, cash prices for the rest ofthe country appeared to be held back by a weakening Nymex futuresscreen and moderate temperatures in major northeastern markets,sources said.