Trading inside the range established on Wednesday and Thursday, natural gas futures checked mostly sideways Friday as light short covering ahead of the weekend was met with an almost equal amount of overhead selling. The July contract finished at $3.93, up 1.6 cents on the day, but down 10.3 cents for the week.
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Articles from inside
FERC OASIS Audit Part of Reliability Effort
Tucked inside a “supplemental notice” addressing FERC’s interimreliability measures, the Commission last week said it “has begunand will continue an extensive review and audit” of electrictransmission owners’ Open Access Same-time Information System(OASIS) sites to ensure compliance.
Clarification
NGI Daily Price Index reported last week that Potomac ElectricPower Co. hoped to sell nearly all of its power generationfacilities — with an estimated capacity of at about 6,055 MW —for an “upside price” of about $3 million. Pepco later correctedthe figure to $3 billion. Pepco further said it hoped to narrow thefield of serious bidders to between six and a dozen by March.
Correction
In NGI’s story, “El Paso Pulls Off FTC-Required Sellathon” inthe previous issue (see NGI, Jan. 10), it is erroneously statedthat CMS Energy Corp. purchased both the Sea Robin pipeline and ashare of the Destin Pipeline from El Paso Energy. CMS onlypurchased Sea Robin whereas the Destin Pipeline was sold to anundisclosed party. NGI regrets the error.
Non-Core, International Investments Not Paying
Increasing competitive pressure inside traditional monopolyutility market territories has triggered somewhat of a revival ofinvestment diversification by gas and electric utilities. But theseinvestments are not what they’re cracked up to be, according toenergy consulting firm Metzler Services, a subsidiary of Metzler& Associates. Non-core investments, including internationalventures, did not payoff over the year ended last September,Metzler calculated in its third quarter Flashreport, released lastweek.
Georgia PSC Votes to Investigate AGL
Like an irate mother ordering her child to come inside while theother children play, the Georgia Public Service Commissionunanimously voted Tuesday to order a full hearing into Atlanta GasLight’s (AGL) rate charging operations. The hearings will beginFeb.3 and a decision is expected by Feb. 9. The vote took placeduring a regular session of the commission.