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After opening just below Tuesday’s close, the May futurescontract chopped lazily sideways yesterday before eking out a smallgain before the close. In fact, yesterday’s price action was sosubdued it was hard for some traders to believe it was expirationday at the New York Mercantile Exchange. The May contract completedits tenure as prompt month, expiring at $2.348, up 1.7 cents forthe day.

Perched at recent highs and just below contract resistance at$2.19, the May contract was poised to continue higher yesterday.And after opening at $2.17 local buying pushed prices to $2.189 inchoppy trading. But despite the bullish euphoria the market hadbefore the open, locals received little help from other marketsegments early yesterday and were forced to cover their longpositions Tuesday afternoon. The resultant sell-off left the promptmonth down 2.5 cents to $2.144.

While just a smidgen of its project would be in Canada, Vectorstill needed – and got yesterday – approval from Canada’s NationalEnergy Board (NEB). “This is a significant milestone and supportsVector’s status as the most advanced project to meet increasingdemand for natural gas for markets east of Chicago,” said VectorVice President Juri Otsason. Vector expects to receive finalcertification from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)in the second quarter, which will represent the final step inregulatory approvals.

“It just goes to show you. This gas market doesn’t make muchsense,” a marketer said. Her comment reflected the chagrin of manytraders Thursday when late-January cash prices tended to firm by upto a nickel instead of falling as generally expected. Most sourceshad been sure Wednesday that the anemic storage withdrawal figurereported by AGA (92 Bcf) would lead to cash softness. Sourcesprofessed to have no clue as to what was propping up prices in theface of no fundamental support, although one suggested the strongFebruary futures close might have given cash a psychological boost.

Cash numbers ranged from flat to just over a nickel higher at afew points Thursday, and sources were nearly unanimous inattributing the upticks mostly to the example set by the Henry Hubfutures contract. In turn, they thought the screen strength derivedfrom the fairly hefty 203 Bcf figure in AGA’s Wednesday afternoonreport on storage withdrawals last week.

For municipal gas buyers, the stars are lined up just right for striking a deal on supply. Low interest rates on municipal bonds and low gas prices have led to a rash of long-term prepaid transactions.

Just eight months after it merged with United Meridian Corp.,Ocean Energy Inc. agreed last week to merge with Seagull EnergyCorp. in a tax-free, stock-for-stock deal creating the 10th largestindependent U.S. oil and gas company based on a pro forma totalmarket equity capitalization of $1.8 billion.

With a blatant clue like the screen’s Monday drop of just over15 cents, which no cash point came close to matching that day, nogas traders had to switch occupations to rocket scientist topredict swing prices would be softening further Tuesday. Except foressential flatness in the Rockies and at Canada’s intra-Alberta andSumas points, most of Tuesday’s declines were within the range of4-9 cents.

Results of Burlington Resources, Apache Corp., and VastarResources are just the beginning of the tale of woe thatindependent producers’ will be telling with their third quarterearnings. The companies turned in results that could only beconsidered poor outside the context of depressed gas and oil pricesand liquids margins that are at historic lows. Production of allthree companies was impacted by Gulf storms and hurricanes.