Excitement

While the excitement mounts regarding the fate of a number of proposed U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects, the CFOs of three companies with projects on the line said Wednesday that a good market exists among free trade agreement (FTA) nations, some right in North America’s backyard.

Larry Nichols, who now chairs Devon Energy Corp., stood “on top of the Fort Worth Basin” on Tuesday and recalled the turning point for his company — and the global natural gas industry.

The market quieted down Friday as the weather-related excitementof last week receded. Eastern points, still just the teensiest bitnervous about the former Tropical Storm Helene and getting a bitchillier in northern market areas, ranged from flat to about anickel lower in most cases.

After beginning last week amid some excitement caused by theadvent of genuine hurricane activity in the Atlantic, the marketwent into the weekend on a generally quiet note Friday. Nearly allGulf Coast and Midcontinent/Midwest points were flat, but Northeastcitygates and California saw small declines and most Rockies pipesfell by 15 or more cents.

After all the winter storm excitement in recent weeks, themarket appeared to be growing calmer Wednesday yet still managed tokeep pushing prices higher. Most of the upticks were between anickel and a little over a dime, with the Northeast remaining thebastion of dollar-plus increases.

Excitement and anticipation, rather than anxiety, prevailed onthe Canadian end of the mammoth merger announced earlier this monthbetween British Petroleum (60%) and Amoco Corp. (40%), thanks tonatural gas.

The June Nymex contract caused quite a bit of excitement onFriday, as the spot month teased both the bears and the bulls. Juneraised the eyebrows of bearish traders when the contractmomentarily reached a low of $1.99, but strong short coveringkicked in at that point, enough to drive the spot month to itsfinal settlement price of $2.094.

The April Nymex contract slipped 2.7 cents to $2.338 onThursday, as traders continue to limit trading to small rangesahead of the expiration of the April contract at 3:10 EST latertoday. April remains several cents above $2.30 despite Henry Hubcash prices that are currently a nickel cheaper