Failing

Two Democratic senators have taken the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to task for failing to capture the extent of proprietary trading by banks, an oversight that they claim will make it difficult for regulators and policy makers to implement restrictions on proprietary trading, including trading of energy commodities.

California regulators scolded Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) Wednesday for allegedly failing to heed an order to complete a data search on the past pressure testing of all of its natural gas transmission pipelines in heavily populated areas. Instead, PG&E submitted incomplete data on Tuesday that even its president said he was not satisfied with (see Daily GPI, March 17).

With Thursday’s supportive storage build even failing to prop up the sagging natural gas futures market, the September contract on Friday was free to probe even lower price levels. September natural gas reached a low of $4.109 before closing the regular session at $4.117, down 5.4 cents from Thursday’s finish and 21.1 cents lower than the previous week’s close.

After failing to break through resistance at $5.200 for a fourth consecutive trading session, the July natural gas futures contract dropped 16.5 cents on Friday to close just below $5 at $4.997 as traders took some profits off the table ahead of the weekend. However, the front-month contract increased by 21.6 cents over the previous week’s finish.

After failing to key off Tuesday’s kick-off of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, natural gas bulls grabbed hold of Wednesday to test out higher prices. The July contract put in a high of $4.440 before closing out the regular session at $4.424, up 17.6 cents from Tuesday’s finish.

Three Wisconsin natural gas and power utilities have accused ANR Pipeline of violating a 2004 settlement and its tariff by failing to notify them of operational changes on the pipeline’s system that could have relieved them of long-held receipt obligations on ANR at Marshfield, WI.

Three Wisconsin natural gas and power utilities have accused ANR Pipeline of violating a 2004 settlement and its tariff by failing to notify them of operational changes on the pipeline’s system that could have relieved them of long-held receipt obligations on ANR at Marshfield, WI.

Three Wisconsin natural gas and power utilities have accused ANR Pipeline of violating a 2004 settlement and its tariff by failing to notify them of operational changes on the pipeline’s system that could have relieved them of long-held receipt obligations on ANR at Marshfield, WI.

Natural gas futures made another run at breaking above $4 on Friday morning but once again were rebuffed, this time failing to even touch the psychological resistance level. Ultimately, traders were comfortable heading into the weekend well within the recent trading range as the July contract closed Friday’s regular session at $3.857, down 7.6 cents from Thursday’s finish and only 1.1 cents lower than the previous week’s close.