Gain

Attempting to gain access to a potentially plentiful Gulf ofMexico gas supply, KeySpan Exploration & Production announcedTuesday it agreed with Houston Exploration Co. to jointly drill anddevelop 55 leases in the Gulf’s outer continental shelf. The $300million agreement has an effective date of Jan. 1, 1999.

PG&ampE Corp. is consolidating overall management of its PacificNorthwest and Texas natural gas operations to gain someefficiencies and prepare for expanding into unspecified marketsthroughout North America. A total of about 100 positions, less than10% of the 1,000-person work force, will be eliminated from PG&ampEGas Transmission (PG&ampE GT)-spread equally among the Texas andPortland, OR, operations.

Market participants cited short-covering and relatively strongcash prices as the main reasons for a 7.4-cent gain turned in bythe March Nymex contract Tuesday. The contract flirted around theminor resistance level of $1.81 for most of the day before settlingslightly higher at $1.818.

AGL Resources Inc., parent of Atlanta Gas Light (AGL) posted anet loss of $1.2 million for the third quarter ended June 30,compared with a gain of $1.4 million for the year-earlier quarter.

Mondays have been bear-traders’ favorite day of the week atNymex with the last five producing losses to start the week. Themarket looked poised to continue that trend yesterday, but strongerprices mixed with concerns the market is nearing the bottombolstered the September contract 2.5 cents for the day. That leftthe prompt month at $1.869.

After taking Tuesday’s small gain in stride, the bears were atit again yesterday pushing the August contract to test the bottomof a descending channel that has limited movement in the contractsince July 1. However, support held and light buying ensued pushingthe contract up to close at $2.231, down 3.5 cents for the day.

Tuesdays are oftentimes a day of small prices changes at the NewYork Mercantile Exchange, and this Tuesday proved to be noexception. The spot August contract settled unchanged at $2.365yesterday, as many traders reportedly remained on the sidelines inanticipation of the next AGA storage report to be released laterthis evening.

The notion that electricity customers in high-cost states willobtain lower priced power under retail competition at the expenseof customers in low-cost states was debunked in a pipeline-backedstudy released last week.

ÿBetter late than never, bullish traders must have thought onTuesday. After posting a extremely light trading session on Monday,the spot August Nymex futures contract exploded 8.0 cents higher tosettle Tuesday at $2.469. The contract managed to hit a high of$2.485 amid a session when a robust 52,644 estimated totalcontracts changed hands.