Finish

June bidweek activity heightened considerably Thursday astraders sprinted toward the finish line, either trying to wind upeverything Thursday or leave only a few tail-end deals to completetoday. A marketer who made six Chicago citygate deals in a verytight range on either side of $2.30 said June prices were justbarely higher despite a gain of more than a nickel in the JulyHenry Hub futures contract. He thought the lack of volatility wasdue to many people leaving early for a long weekend. If moretraders were still around and working there would be more input andbreadth to the ranges.

Political forces are prevailing over economics in California’songoing efforts to finish the job of unbundling its natural gas andelectricity industries, and no one in the newly elected Gov. GrayDavis’s administration so far is getting involved, according toenergy industry observers in the state capital in Sacramento. As aresult, three months into 1999, the five-member California PublicUtilities Commission is operating with two vacant seats, stillawaiting gubernatorial appointments.

It was business as usual last week at the New York MercantileExchange as the market continued its tug of war, pitting storagebears against bottom-seeking bulls. And just as the case has beensince the middle of 1998 when the downtrend began, it was the bearswho were dominant, pulling optimistic buyers dangerously close tothe mud in the middle. But just when even the most time-weatheredbulls were ready let go of the rope, the market managed to fumblehigher in lethargic Friday afternoon trading. The April contractfinished up 1.2 cents for the day at $1.699.

The futures market gave the impression it would finish the weekon a boring note, and for nearly the entire abbreviated tradingsession last Thursday it did just that-trading within a tighttwo-cent range. But that was before bears gave the market a littlepre-Christmas surprise by selling the market into the final bell.The prompt January contract finished 2.5 cents lower at $1.881.Estimated volume was a paltry 24,112 contracts.

The FERC staff has indicated it may not be able to finish itsenvironmental review of the proposed New York-bound MillenniumPipeline in time for the Commission to issue a final certificate byJune 1, 1999, as the pipeline has requested. But even if this turnsout to be the case, project sponsor Columbia Gas Transmission saysit still intends to meet the planned in-service date of Nov. 1,2000. That would coincide with the start-up date for the AlliancePipeline.

The futures market continued to trade sideways to finish out theweek on Friday despite the large bearish sentiment, underpinned byfundamentals, that continues to dominant the market. The Septembercontract may have slipped only slightly to settle at $1.947, but itwas not for a lack of trying. Friday produced very choppy tradingthat had the prompt month bouncing between the $1.90 and $2.00.

The August natural gas futures contract slipped 1.1 cents to$2.439 Thursday, as traders scrambled to finish their businessahead of the long fourth-of-July weekend. “Today was pretty muchjust position covering ahead of the weekend,” a broker told GPI. “Idon’t think anyone was too concerned with, or had the goal of,moving August outside of its trading range,” he said. For thatreason, he was not surprised to see technical support at $2.38hold.

KeySpan Energy Corp. combined last week with Long IslandLighting Co. (LILCO) to form MarketSpan Corp., a new holdingcompany dedicated to market growth in the Northeast as well asinvestments in energy in North America and abroad.