Dwindle

With heating load continuing to dwindle in most areas of the U.S. and Eastern Canada, even the support from a prior-day April futures increase of 13 cents was unable to prevent cash prices from dropping at nearly all points Wednesday. Although the region was still digging out from an early-week snowstorm, the prospect of warmer temperatures Thursday resulted in Northeast citygate plunges continuing to lead overall declines.

With heating load continuing to dwindle, and the decline of industrial load over a weekend coming into play, prices fell at nearly all points Friday. A few scattered flat to a little more than a nickel higher locations averted a clean sweep of softening.

With heating load starting to dwindle and with a prior-day plunge of nearly 70 cents in January futures, cash prices continued Thursday the steep slide that had started on Wednesday. All drops were pretty sizeable in ranging from a little less than 40 cents to around $1.30. Northeast citygates again took most of the dollar-plus hits.

Tougher environmental regulations could result in the shutdownof about 30% of the existing U.S. coal-fired generation capacityover the next decade, opening the potential for the gas industry tocapture an additional 10 Bcf/d of natural gas demand , says a keyexecutive with WEFA Inc.

The number of proposed major pipeline projects on schedule forservice in winter 1999 continues to dwindle, with IndependencePipeline telling FERC yesterday it plans to delay service by a yearuntil November 2000. The pipeline’s sponsors said the $678 millionproject will be delayed because of the lengthy construction timerequired. FERC still has not approved the project. Markets for the400-mile pipeline system also have been slow to develop, butsponsors said they recently executed an additional precedentagreement with Eastern Energy Marketing for 99,000 Dth/d of firmtransportation capacity, bringing subscriptions to nearly 70% ofthe pipeline’s 916 MMcf/d capacity.