Glance

November natural gas futures on Tuesday dismissed resistance at $5 without so much as a glance as the contract reached a high of $5.195 before closing out the regular session at $5.161, up 32.6 cents from Monday’s regular session finish. The last time a front-month contract traded higher was back on Jan. 14 when the February contract reached $5.235.

While they appear at first glance to be strange bedfellows, even in California’s unpredictable regulatory milieu, the newest regulator on the five-member California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Dian Grueneich, told an industry group earlier this month that she is a strong advocate for both addressing global climate change and exploring clean coal power generation options. Coming from a Democrat who was appointed late last year by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that should not be too surprising.

While they appear at first glance to be strange bedfellows, even in California’s unpredictable regulatory milieu, the newest regulator on the five-member California Public Utilities Commission, Dian Grueneich, told an industry group Friday she is a strong advocate for both addressing global climate change and exploring clean coal power generation options. Coming from a Democrat who was appointed late last year by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, that should not be too surprising.

“El Nino” apparently isn’t Spanish for “low natural gas prices.” Glance at last week’s record and near-record Gulf Coast and Northeast spot gas prices, a rare operational flow order on Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line and another in a string of cold fronts walloping the Northeast and it’s clear weather forecasters got it wrong this winter in a big way.

“El Nino” apparently isn’t Spanish for “low natural gas prices.” Glance at Tuesday’s record and near-record Gulf Coast and Northeast gas prices, a potential rare operational flow order on Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line and another in a string of cold fronts walloping the Northeast and it’s clear weather forecasters got it wrong this winter in a big way.

In what at first glance appears to be part of the continuing fallout from the rapid downfall and bankruptcy of Enron Corp., the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week amended its rules and forms to require more transparent company disclosures of employee stock option plans (ESOP) and other equity compensation arrangements.

A glance at NiSource’s second quarter earnings tells a lot aboutwhy it’s looking to Columbia for help. While Columbia won praisefrom analysts for beating second quarter earnings expectations witha 15% jump in net income to $26.1 million, or 32 cents per share,it’s hostile suitor NiSource struggled and fell short of WallStreet expectations by $0.03/share, reporting a 22% drop in netincome to $22.9 million or $0.18/share, from $29.5, or $0.24/sharein 2Q98.

A casual glance at the futures table — its narrow trading rangeand its small daily change — would lead one to believe Wednesdaywas a relatively quiet expiration day at Nymex, during which theAugust contract was ushered off the board at $1.942. ButWednesday’s trading was anything but ordinary. Traders wereinundated by a host of technical and fundamental factors, leadingto “very choppy” trading and heavy volume of 116,428.

At first glance Monday was one of those not-too-often cases inwhich “following the screen” did not apply to the cash market. Butas a Northeastern buyer pointed out, an initially flat futuresshowing allowed many physical-gas markets to post gains of a nickelor so, and by the time the screen got around to diving by about 7cents, it was too late to affect a lot of cash deals. But late cashtrading did reflect the weakness in the Nymex pit, said a producerwho found late Henry Hub and Katy sales down 3-4 cents fromearly-morning levels.