Last

The futures market began the week Tuesday in the same fashion itclosed out last week – probing higher amid a technical bouncesupported by continued apprehension about tropical storm activity.That enabled the October contract to post a gain for its third dayin a row by advancing 9.1 cents to $1.874.

Viking Gas Transmission last week proposed plans for a 45-mile,28 MMcf/d looping of its existing system in northwestern andcentral Minnesota in 1999. This is “a smaller project matched tomeet incremental market demand,” said Viking Gas President GregoryH. Palmer, but he noted it’s the first of a series of expansionsthe pipeline plans to carry out over the next couple of years.

Venture capitalist Oliver Curme is looking for big things fromAltra Energy Technologies. Last year the company in which he’s apartner, Battery Ventures, bought a majority stake in Altra, whichoffers real-time electronic trading of energy. “I put $10 millionof my company’s money into Altra Energy Technologies,” he toldattendees at Zeus Development’s Interactive Energy conference inHouston earlier this week. “I believe, like many of you do, thatthere’s a gold mine to be made in interactive energy, and I put mymoney where my mouth is. In fact, my neck is really stretched onaccount of my belief to the tune of $10 million. But Altra’s areally great company. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a winner.”

Mitchell Energy & Development agreed to settle the lastremaining 25 North Texas groundwater lawsuits brought against acompany subsidiary. Plaintiffs alleged in the suits that Mitchell’soil and gas operations in Wise County, TX, affected theirgroundwater.

Four major gas associations last week urged FERC to reconsider”as soon as possible” an April rule requiring interstate pipelinesto conduct electronic communication using only electronic datainterchange (EDI) over the Internet by June 1, 1999.

Mitchell Energy & Development has grown its gas reserves toan all-time high and increased combined oil and gas reserves bynearly 10% over the last six months by acquiring producingproperties in Limestone and Colorado counties in Texas.

Follow-through on the heels of last Friday’s positive tradingsession prompted some mild short covering which bolstered futuresfor the second Monday in a row. The September contract was thebiggest mover, posting a 6.2 cent gain to settle at 1.895 on theday.

California regulators took another step toward unbundling thenatural gas business in the state last week, issuing proposedguidelines and saying it will remove limits on the state’sseven-year core aggregation program, meaning any size core customereventually will be able to choose a new supplier.

California regulators last week liberalized the use of utilityemployees in non-utility energy affiliate companies as part oftheir action finalizing a set of rules on the interaction betweenthe state’s three major electricity utilities and their affiliatedcompanies. With the advent of retail electric competition each ofthe utilities have several unregulated affiliates offering energysupplies and related services.