Front

As the December bills for natural gas use hit the home front,city and state officials in Illinois, one of the hardest hit lastmonth, weatherwise, reacted with measures to increase low incomeassistance and investigate the cause of the high prices.

Jeffrey Skilling, Enron Corp.’s front man for its energy riskmanagement business and commodity trading growth, will add a CEO inFebruary to his title of president and CFO following a vote by thecompany’s board of directors last week. Current CEO Kenneth Laywill remain chairman and a full-time employee and once again triedto dispel rumors that he may be tapped as a member ofPresident-Elect George W. Bush’s cabinet.

Jeffrey Skilling, Enron Corp.’s front man for its energy riskmanagement business and commodity trading growth, will add a CEO inFebruary to his title of president and CFO following a vote by thecompany’s board of directors this week. Current CEO Kenneth Laywill remain chairman and a full-time employee and once again triedto dispel rumors that he may be tapped as a member ofPresident-Elect George W. Bush’s cabinet.

With little in the way of fresh news on either the fundamentalor technical front, natural gas futures were left to limp lazilysideways Friday within a fairly tight 14.5-cent range. At theclosing bell, the December contract finished right about in themiddle, narrowly eking out at 1.1-cent gain to finish at $5.456.Activity was light as some traders observed the Veteran’s Dayholiday.

As it continues to assuage concerned landowners and perhaps keepa positive image in front of regulators, Houston’s Coastal Corp.yesterday touted the benefits of its proposed Gulfstream NaturalGas System LLC affiliate, saying that the Florida pipeline willpump $1.2 billion into the Sunshine state’s economy, most of thatcoming during the construction phase.

TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. has opened a second front in itsfight to stop, before it starts, a revenue hemorrhage seen on thehorizon as a result of new competition in natural gastransportation.

MRT lifted Wednesday an OFO affecting interruptible gas north ofthe Glendale, AR, Station (see Daily GPI,Jan. 5).

Nymex front months continued to lose strength yesterday withNovember opening sharply lower and slipping downhill fast duringlight morning trading. There was significant selling early asNovember dropped into the low $2.70s before 11 a.m. then choppedsideways the rest of the day, before ending at $2.744, less than 2cents off its daily low of $2.725 and down 8 cents for the day.

Avista Corp. is counting on technology businesses for growth andsees its Internet-based bill consolidation business as the frontdoor to a nationwide marketing presence. During press briefingslast week in Houston and Washington, DC, executives outlinedAvista’s continuing evolution.