Influencing

A continuing La Nina event off the west coast of South America will be the dominant factor influencing weather across most of the United States this winter, bringing colder- and wetter-than-usual conditions to the Pacific Northwest and northern Plains, while much of the Southeast, Gulf Coast, Southwest and California will experience decidedly non-winter weather, according to a pair of forecasts issued separately Thursday.

Key pressure points influencing the price of natural gas this summer — the economy, storage, consumption and supply — are expected to be flat with last summer, providing a more stable market than a year ago and a “measure of relief” for consumers during the June through August period, the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) said in its latest outlook. While the forecast is an improvement over last summer, the producer group stressed that the gas market still remains very tight.

Energy traders in Tokyo soon may be influencing the price of natural gas at the Henry Hub in Louisiana. The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) said Tuesday that it has reached an agreement with Tokyo Commodity Exchange to allow the Japanese financial markets to participate in Nymex Access trading in energy and metals futures contracts. Internet-based trading is scheduled to become operational in Japan on July 20.

Following a year-long investigation, a Senate committee has cleared Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and current Citigroup executive, and several other bankers of allegations that they acted illegally when they contacted government officials regarding Enron Corp. and its credit rating just weeks before the energy company filed for bankruptcy in December 2001.

Few can deny that the two biggest factors influencing prices inthe volatile natural gas futures arena are storage and weather.Accordingly, a combination of record cold temperatures andlarger-than-expected storage withdrawals through November andDecember caused natural gas prices to more than double, leavingregulators stunned and sending buyer to the poor house. And whileit is doubtful that natural gas prices will return the ol’two-dollar days anytime soon, the futures market did take solid ahit yesterday and yes, storage and weather were to blame.

Although price probably will be the most important factorinfluencing energy decisions after this winter, it is the otherthings, such as reliability and customer service, that so far havedetermined the winners and losers in the gas sales business,according to a new survey by RKS Research & Consulting.

Although price probably will be the most important factorinfluencing energy decisions after this winter, it is the otherthings, such as reliability and customer service, that so far havedetermined the winners and losers in the gas sales business,according to a new survey by RKS Research & Consulting.

Bulls and bears took turns influencing futures yesterday as themarket trended higher throughout regular pit trading, only to dropright back down to near unchanged in last night’s Access session.As is the case on any Wednesday, the price catalyst came in theform of the weekly AGA storage report released at the beginning ofAccess trading. The November contract experienced the largest priceswings of the strip, settling up 4.7 cents to $2.393 beforeretracing 3.3 cents lower to $2.36.

Usually when sources refer to “following the screen,” it meansfutures trading influencing cash prices up or down in the samedirection. Thursday it was a case of cash following the screennowhere. Lack of movement in Nymex’s September contract wasreplicated by general flatness for physical gas.