Heavy

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has upheld its earlier order imposing a heavy reporting requirement on transporters and sellers of natural gas into the California market.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has upheld its earlier order imposing a heavy reporting requirements on transporters and sellers of natural gas into the California market.

Prices were generally a bit higher Wednesday as traders with heavy hearts struggled to resume business as close as possible to normal. There was a decided lack of consistency as production-area numbers ranged from mildly softer to about a dime higher, and market-area deliveries were similarly varied.

Billing them as “two new whistleblowers,” California political officials responded last week to heavy counterattacks in the news media by Duke Energy North America, which strongly argues it has done nothing wrong. The state politicians brought forth two additional former power plant workers who allege wrongdoing by Duke in the operation of a San Diego County generation plant.

After encountering heavy overhead selling above last Thursday’s $4.13 high, natural gas futures sunk lower Monday as traders took back early-session advances and demoted the market to its lowest level in more than a week. The July contract closed 4 cents weaker at $3.939, but comparatively, that was the good news for bulls. The rest of the summer strip slipped 4.1 cents and the winter strip sunk 5.4 cents. Keeping with the trend, the 12-month strip tumbling 5.4 cents as well.

With the weather heating up and power alerts being declared, Monday marked another day of heavy duty political rallies and advertising blitzes in California even though this is an off year for elections as Gov. Gray Davis and Southern California Edison Co. sought to inject a grass root’s element to their separate conservation and state legislative campaigns.

Reps. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-LA), Joe Barton (R-TX) and James Greenwood (R-PA) are seeking assurances from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that it has enough resources to adequately address its current workload, as well as any additional regulatory activities that are likely to come the agency’s way, going forward.

FERC came under heavy attack on Capitol Hill last week from state energy officials for dragging its heels in issuing decisions, not aggressively monitoring bulk power markets for abuses, and for not checking more thoroughly to see whether competition was present in electric markets before it removed price regulation.

FERC came under heavy attack on Capitol Hill yesterday fromstate energy officials for dragging its heels in issuing decisions,not aggressively monitoring bulk power markets for abuses, and fornot checking more thoroughly to see whether competition was presentin markets before it removed price regulation.