Huge

In a huge turnaround of the cash market spurred by the arrivalof weather that finally appeared more wintry than springlike,prices were skyrocketing Monday from the abyss into which they hadsunk prior to the weekend. To say that double-digit increasescharacterized trading was a gross understatement when many pointswere rising by 50-60 cents or more.

Without one-time charges, MCN Energy lost plenty in the thirdquarter, and a huge hit of $2.14/share in nonrecurring chargesdidn’t help at all.

Amber Energy’s board has accepted a revised merger offer fromAlberta Energy Co. (AEC) and said it will cease pursuing the saleof some of its midstream assets. AEC raised its offer for Amber by50 cents a share to $7.50, or 0.225 AEC shares for each Ambercommon share, and agreed to an aggregate limit of 4.5 millionshares, which is up from 3 million. Together, the two gas companieshold the largest gas reserve base of any publicly-owned oil and gascompany in Canada with 4 Tcf of reserves, and create one of thelargest gas producers north of the border with about 900 MMcf/d ofgas production, said AEC President and CEO Gwyn Morgan.

Cinergy Corp. took a huge step in growing its commoditymarketing operation yesterday with the purchase of Producers EnergyMarketing, LLC, (ProEnergy) from owners Oryx Energy and ApacheCorp. for $42.5 million and with the signing of a 10-year marketingalliance that covers both producers’ entire marketable gas supply,or about 1.1 Bcf/d.

After a decade of recuperation, the North American gas industryfaces the challenge of growing end-use consumption to 25 or even 30Tcf in the U.S. alone over the next decade, according to the 1998North American Natural Gas Trends report released yesterday byArthur Andersen and Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).

New Energy Ventures won a huge four-year power supply contractwith the Department of Defense that covers 1,200,000 MWh ofelectricity annually is worth $300 million. Among the servicesincluded in the contract are energy procurement and access to dailyincremental electric usage and demand data for each site via NewEnergy Ventures’ customer service Web site,http://www.nevservice.com.