Just

Just as what could be remembered as one of the most intensehurricanes ever to make landfall on U.S. soil gradually turned tothe north and away from production assets in the Gulf of Mexico,natural gas futures turned south yesterday as traders priced stormconcerns out of the market. After gapping lower to open at $2.69the October contract never looked back, tumbling 14.5 cents on theday to finish at $2.636.

Just as Tropical Storm Bret was being downgraded to a drenchingrain event for South Texas the natural gas futures market wasundergoing a downgrading of its own yesterday, as traders tookprofits in a mid-morning sell-off. However, by mid-afternoon theNational Hurricane Center had anointed the latest two tropicaldepressions-Dennis and Emily-into tropical storms and that wasenough to convince those sellers to become buyers. That was almostenough to recoup the earlier price decline, leaving the Septembercontract to finish the session with only a half-cent loss to$3.059.

With just over a year to go before the new Alberta-to-Chicagolink, Alliance Pipeline, goes into service, TransCanada PipeLinesand affiliate Nova Gas Transmission already are feeling the impactof the competition.

With just over a year to go before the new Alberta-to-Chicagolink, Alliance Pipeline, goes into service TransCanada PipeLinesand affiliate Nova Gas Transmission already are feeling the impactof the competition.

Vector Energy Corp., created just over a year ago through oiland gas asset acquisitions, is leaving drill bits behind in favorof dot-coms and ISPs. “Nobody cares about oil and gas,” said VectorFounder and President Sam Skipper. Over the next several yearsVector will be either divesting its oil and gas properties ormerging them into another company, he said. Meanwhile it’s headingfor Internet territory, with a letter of intent to acquire onepublicly-held Internet Service Provider (ISP) and promises of anagreement with another with 8,000 subscribers.

Just one week after the break-up of the KN/Sempra merger overpoor financials, KN Energy has started action on an intense assetdivestment strategy. The Colorado-based company sold $51 millionworth of various Gulf of Mexico (GOM) assets last week, includinginterests in HIOS, U-TOS and Stingray, to Leviathan Gas Pipelinewhich is controlled by El Paso Energy. The transaction closed June30.

Just one week after the break-up of the KN/Sempra merger overpoor financials, KN Energy has started action on an intense assetdivestment strategy. The Colorado-based company sold $51 millionworth of various Gulf of Mexico (GOM) assets last week, includinginterests in HIOS, U-TOS and Stingray, to Leviathan Gas Pipelinewhich is controlled by El Paso Energy. The transaction closed June30.

Not content to converge just with electricity, the gas industryis turning to telecommunications. Specifically, pipelines arefinding their rights of way make sense for the routing offiber-optic telecommunications cable.

Just in case there were any doubters still out there, AlliancePipeline says it now has nine of 10 mainline construction crews inthe field installing the $3 billion pipeline system. The crewsstarted construction on two spreads in North Dakota, one inMinnesota, two in Iowa, one in Illinois and two in Saskatchewan. AThird crew is starting in Saskatchewan this week.