Extremely

Following Nymex Holdings Inc.’s extremely successful initial public offering (IPO) late last week, the company’s chairman left the field open, responding that future mergers were not out of the question, possibly even with its largest rival Atlanta-based IntercontinentalExchange (ICE).

What had seemed like an extremely weak cash market going into the weekend came roaring back to life Monday with huge price gains that often matched or exceeded the losses of the previous Friday. Dollar-plus increases were common in response to what one analyst said were forecasts for the rest of October and November that had turned much colder over the weekend.

Absent an extremely hot summer or strong hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, natural gas prices may drop enough this year to reach a parity with coal prices, a Bank of America (BofA) analyst said last week. BofA cut its full-year 2006 spot gas price estimates to $6.50/MMBtu from $7.15, well below the current Street consensus of $7.80.

Absent an extremely hot summer or strong hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, natural gas prices may drop enough this year to reach a parity with coal prices, a Bank of America (BofA) analyst said Wednesday. BofA cut its full-year 2006 spot gas price estimates to $6.50/MMBtu from $7.15, well below the current Street consensus of $7.80.

Citing forecasts of “extremely warm weather” for its service area, MRT said a System Protection Warning (SPW) will take effect at the start of Tuesday’s gas day until further notice. Under the SPW, all shippers must balance receipts and deliveries, and MRT said it will not allow imbalances that result in an overdelivery of supplies into its system.

CIG declared an OFO Saturday because of the extremely cold weather in its market area, then ended it Sunday. Wellhead freeze-offs in the Rockies limited the amount of supply that CIG could deliver to Xcel Energy’s Public Service Co. of Colorado utility, resulting in rolling power outages of brief duration Saturday (see related story).

In what is becoming an extremely verbose war between neighboring South Dakota energy holding companies, NorthWestern Corp. Monday fired off another letter to its pursuer, Black Hills Corp., reiterating that its board has not rejected the Black Hills’ offer to start serious merger talks, and it wants to consider the offer as one of several strategic alternatives, but only after a confidentiality agreement between the two companies is hammered out. Black Hills is balking at the current confidentiality proposal.

Traders’ concerns over what was expected to be an extremely small weekly storage injection appeared to be unfounded Thursday as the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that 44 Bcf was put into underground stores for the week ended Sept. 30. Dropping lower in waves Thursday, November natural gas futures ended up settling at $13.375, down 80.8 cents on the day.

With Dennis having further strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category Four hurricane overnight, producers scrambled Friday morning to batten down the hatches in the eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) by evacuating platform and drilling rig workers and shutting in production as necessary. Pipelines with offshore segments or connections in the eastern Gulf were posting bulletin board warnings of expected supply losses as the day wore on and instructing shippers on the proper response.