Finishing

By the time you read this El Paso Energy will be putting thefinishing touches on its merger with Sonat Inc., creating thelargest natural gas pipeline in North America in terms of miles andthroughput.

After finishing last week with a multi-day Overage Alert Daynotice carrying a 6% tolerance for negative daily imbalances,Florida Gas Transmission reinstated the low-linepack OFO for itsmarket area Tuesday but tightened the tolerance considerably to 2%.The new notice is again due to high market area demand and appliesto the system east of Station 12 (Santa Rosa County, FL).

How quickly the market can change! Just two days after finishinga bidweek that saw indexes climb 30 cents or more, traders tookcash prices down Thursday to levels looking much more like Augustindexes than those of September. It was a rare point that managedto avoid a double-digit decline, and some registered drops of 20cents or more.

Boston-based BEC Energy and Commonwealth Energy System completedtheir merger into $4.5 billion NSTAR last Wednesday – one day afterwinning approval for the transaction from the Securities andExchange Commission.

Boston-based BEC Energy and Commonwealth Energy System completedtheir merger into $4.5 billion NSTAR Wednesday – one day afterwinning approval for the transaction from the Securities andExchange Commission.

Buoyed by another day of strong demand in the physical market,the futures market trended higher Friday in a choppy, range-boundtrading session. After opening just two pennies above Thursday’slow of $2.67, the September contract rumbled 2.2 cents higher onthe day to finish at $2.745.