Hours

Within hours of the Senate voting out Democrat-crafted broad energy legislation late Thursday, Republican leaders vowed to make significant changes to tailor the bill to fit their views on energy issues, while Democrats warned they may filibuster a bill that emerges from conference committee radically altered.

If you don’t like the direction of natural gas prices, wait a day. Just one trading session and 24 hours after rallying to a new two-week high at $6.12, natural gas futures tested the other end of the price spectrum Tuesday as sellers took profits and initiated fresh shorts. With no fresh technical news to divert their attention, traders were left to contemplate the possibility for another hefty storage injection when the Energy Information Administration releases that data Thursday. That, coupled with private weather forecasts, which call for temperatures to cool down just as quickly as they have warmed up this week, put bears back at the market’s helm Tuesday.

In the waning hours of its spring session, the Illinois legislature last week agreed to impose a 5% sales tax on natural gas bought out-of-state as part of its budget and tax package aimed at curing the state government deficit. The measure will mainly impact manufacturers, but the legislators modified the governor’s proposal by including several exemptions.

In the waning hours of its spring session, the Illinois legislature earlier this week agreed to impose a 5% sales tax on natural gas bought out-of-state as part of its budget and tax package aimed at curing the state government deficit. The measure will mainly impact manufacturers, but the legislators modified the governor’s proposal by including several exemptions.

Less than 24 hours after state regulators gave approval for sale of added storage gas supplies, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility Friday announced an open season Nov. 13-26, 2002, for 8.12 Bcf of supplies in two of its underground storage facilities.

Less than 24 hours after state regulators gave approval for sale of added storage gas supplies, Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility Friday announced an open season (Nov. 13-26) for 8.12 Bcf of gas from two of its underground storage facilities. As part of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) actions last Thursday, this designated amount of formerly cushion gas was freed to be sold on the open market, in addition to 5.88 Bcf of gas retained for bundled core and noncore customers.

After ratcheting tentatively higher through the morning hours, natural gas futures sifted lower Friday afternoon as information on the extent of damage to production assets in the Gulf of Mexico was slow in coming. With that November came to rest at $3.739 Friday, up 1.5 cents for the session but down 30.2 cents in its first full week as prompt contract at the New York Mercantile Exchange. At just 77,372, estimated volume was evidence of the market’s uncertainty.

Hours after the deadline passed for the White House and the Office of the Vice President to comply with congressional subpoenas, the White House late last Tuesday began turning over documents to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee related to its contacts with the now-bankrupt Enron Corp. The committee said “one box and one accordion folder of documents” had been delivered by the end of the day, containing about 2,170 pages of e-mails and other papers.

Within less than 24 hours after Northwest Natural Gas and Enron Corp. decided to terminate their $2.98 billion stock/debt-assumption deal for the gas utility to buy bankruptcy-mired Enron’s Portland General Electric (PGE) subsidiary, Moody’s Investors Service Friday downgraded PGE and affirmed the gas company’s “stable rating.”