Hold

Chairman James Hoecker said this week FERC plans to hold onestaff workshop (possibly more) with the gas industry in mid-Octoberto flesh out the details involved in the auctioning of short-termcapacity. The workshop will occur prior to the deadline forindustry comments on the notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) thataddresses regulation of short-term capacity, specifically theauctioning of that capacity. The comments are due in earlyNovember.

Southern California Gas will hold a one-day auction Sept. 1 tosell its exclusive rights to buy 370 miles of large-diametertransmission pipeline and related facilities currently transporting1.1 Bcf/d of supplies from Rocky Mountain and Southwest supplysources. The winning bid(s) will be announced Sept. 16, SoCalGasofficials said this week. A previously announced June8-through-mid-July auction was canceled because of state regulatorydelays, they said. Both the auction and results will be accessiblethrough the large gas-only distribution utility’s on-line GasSelectservice and company website on the Internet(www.socalgas.com/3rdparty/kern).

Cash prices either remained flat or rebounded a cent or two atmost delivery points across the board on Friday, mainly as resultof recent forecasts of above normal temperatures throughout thecountry, and the fact that the relatively low prices made for anattractive storage play opportunity. In addition to minor losses inthe Northeastern markets, Western and Rockies points, whichdemonstrated the most strength during the past week, alsoregistered declines of between 1-4 cents.

After several years on hold because of poor Rocky Mountainregion market conditions, TransColorado Gas Transmission’s Phase IIexpansion project is proceeding and should be in service inDecember. FERC approved the 300 MMcf/d expansion last week as didthe Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

With the Viking Voyageur project on-hold, ANR Pipeline announcedplans to move in and grab more of the Midwest market. The pipelinesaid it intends to build another expansion designed to providetransportation from its Joliet Hub near Chicago to delivery pointsin Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. An open season for service,which is expected to begin Nov. 1, 2000 or later, will be held fromJuly 1 through Aug. 1.

Follow-through buying took hold of Nymex trading early, and ledto new session highs before the closing bell last Friday as Julygained 9.9 cents to settle at $2.17. July gapped higher on the openafter coming into the day with solid momentum following Thursday’smodest gains in both the regular and ACCESS trading session. Julyopened at 2.115 Friday, already 4.4 cents above Thursday’s settle.A warming trend for both the weekend and extending into the 6-10day forecast in the South, coupled with some technical momentumwere universally cited as reasons for the strength.

Amid a day one broker called “perhaps the most boring of any Iremember,” the spot June NYMEX contract nudged 0.4 cents lower tosettle at $2.200. The broker actually said the day was interestingin that a large amount of anticipated activity never materialized.”Every floor trader we spoke to expected when June broke below$2.18, tons of sell stops would kick in between $2.15-17. But therewasn’t diddly squat for stops. In fact, just the opposite happenedin that there was pretty good scaled-down buying once June hit$2.15,” he said.

The Energy Information Administration continues to be bearish ongas wellhead prices this year but expects prices to remain abovethe $2/Mcf mark because of the possibility that temperatures willbe higher than normal this summer and coal delivery problems maypersist in Texas. In its May Short Term Energy Outlook, the EIAsaid it expects wellhead prices to average $2.15/Mcf this year,down 3.6% from the $2.23/Mcf average in 1997.

Chevron U.S.A. Production Co. announced the discovery of a largenew natural gas trend offshore Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexicothat could hold 1 Tcf of gross reserves. Chevron said the VioscaKnoll Carbonate Trend is unique to the Gulf in part because of itssize and because it’s the first offshore gas reserves to originatefrom Lower Cretaceous reservoirs. The Lower Cretaceous, however,has been productive onshore in Texas, Louisiana and in Mexico.