February

Walt Rosenbusch, a native of Austin, TX, has been appointeddirector of the Minerals Management Service, succeeding CynthiaQuarterman who resigned in February. Rosenbusch takes office May17. Since July, 1996 he has worked as a senior tax manager forErnst & Young’s Houston Energy Service Team. Prior to thatRosenbusch was with the U.S. Dept. of Interior in the land andminerals management area, working to resolve royalty issuesinvolving on- and offshore leasing. He had worked in the TexasGeneral Land Office where he was responsible for the management andadministration of 13.5 million mineral acres.

Citing such factors as customer cooperation and recent storageactivity in March, ANR said it was able to rescind a Februarynotice requiring that interruptible storage customers under the MBSand DDS rate schedules draw their accounts down to a zero balanceby today. However, the pipeline added, due to abnormally highinventory balances remaining and overall operational concerns, itmust continue to limit interruptible injections “for theforeseeable future.”

It was like old times again (if you can regard February as “oldtimes”) for traders Friday as weekend swing pricing leveled offwith little change from Thursday. It reminded some of the longperiods last month when there was practically no volatility in thecash market. The small gains handily outweighed a few scatteredpenny drops in the West for an overall showing of flat to a smidgenhigher.

Trading at the New York Mercantile Exchange for the month ofFebruary has featured tight but choppy ranges punctuated by smalldecreases when sellers slightly outnumbered the buyers in themarket. And yesterday’s expiration-day session was simply amicrocosm of that as the March contract was the focus of a fierce,and mostly balanced battle, which was ultimately decided by sellerslate in the day. The March contract concluded its reign as promptmonth with a 4.4-cent decline to settle at $1.666.

FERC announced it will sponsor a technical conference next monthon the issue of Y2K readiness in the energy industry. It will beheld Feb. 18 at 9 a.m. at the Commission’s Washington headquarters.

Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. said it plans to reduceits work force in February through both a voluntary incentiveretirement program and staff cuts, but it did not say how manypositions would be eliminated. The company currently has 1,125employees at offices in east and north Texas. Reductions areexpected throughout the company’s operating areas, not only in theHouston area.