Held

The proposed merger of electric powerhouse American ElectricPower (AEP), which also owns the midstream gas assets formerly heldby Equitable Resources, and Central and Southwest Corp. (CSW) wasplaced on hold last week, as FERC set the case for an evidentiaryhearing, saying “sufficient concerns” had been raised aboutpotential market power in both the transmission and generationarenas.

The futures market gave an early “head fake” — pointing lowerat the open — but support held and the market picked up momentumthroughout the trading session Monday. The December contract spikeddramatically higher near the close, registering a 11.2 cent advanceto $2.387. Despite the large trading range, volume was a little onthe light side with only 50,263 contracts changing hands.

Shell Oil has become a significant player in the midstream gasbusiness, but this wasn’t always so. While the company heldmidstream gas assets, they were operated as an adjunct to its oilbusiness. That was until deregulation and new market entrantssuggested to Shell it ought to get into the midstream.

DukeSolutions, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, has acquiredprivately held Engineering Interface Limited of Toronto and itsmain subsidiary Tescor Energy Services, Inc. The new company willbecome the Canadian operations for DukeSolutions. Terms of theacquisition were not disclosed.

Call For Papers

The June Nymex futures contract kicked up 2.0 cents to $2.169 onWednesday, amid a relatively light trading session and an extremelylimited three-cent trading range. Estimated volume came in at amere 43,390 contracts. “Trading was extremely orderly today,” abroker reported. “There was no real panic. Most of the volume wasEFPs and spreads today, with very little outright trading.” Hethinks part of the reason why speculative activity was limited isthat a satellite which transmits Nymex data to several vendors wasapparently down yesterday, and that prevented traders from gettingnecessary real-time price information.

Swelling open interest and large long positions held byspeculators finally caught up with the May Nymex contract onMonday, as the spot month torpedoed 17.8 cents lower to close theday at $2.479. In so doing, the contract easily broke below the uptrendline that was lending major support in the $2.51-53 area. “Ifeel like I’ve been kicked in the face,” one source said.

Despite already having held a series of hearings on the project,FERC yesterday set for hearing the issue of whether the market needfor a controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility plannedfor a Maine community could be better met by alternative pipelineprojects.