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Buoyed by stronger cash market values and bullish speculationahead of the latest AGA storage report, natural gas futures clawedtheir way off early morning lows yesterday as buyers added to theirsummer long positions. However, that buying pressure was all fornaught because prices came cascading back down late in the session,leaving the April contract with a 4.3-cent loss for the day. Theprompt month settled at $5.236.

California’s governor late Friday confirmed that the latestplans call for the state to demand the equivalent of stock optionsin its two largest investor-owned utilities, Pacific Gas andElectric and Southern California Edison, in return for the state’sproposed plan to spend billions of dollars in the next few monthsto help the two utilities avoid bankruptcy and to bring order toCalifornia’s increasingly chaotic energy markets, some of which hasbeen caused directly by the negative cash flow plaguing bothcompanies.

OGE Energy Corp. has scored a second natural gas transportationcontract in less than a month for its Transok pipeline system, thelatest with PECO Energy Co.’s Power Team to transport gas to a new800 MW power plant under construction in Jenks, OK. Enogex Inc., anOGE subsidiary, will operate the new facility.

Williams said it expected its OFO (see Daily GPI, Dec. 12) to expire at the beginning oftoday’s gas day “based upon the latest weather forecast that we havereceived.” However, as of late Wednesday afternoon no cancellationnotice had been posted.

FERC last week awarded a preliminary determination on non-environmental issues to Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) for its latest project to expand its existing 1.4 Bcf/d of transportation capacity by nearly one-third.

FERC yesterday awarded a preliminary determination onnon-environmental issues to Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) for itslatest project to expand its existing 1.4 Bcf/d of transportationcapacity by nearly one-third.

In the latest of a yearlong effort to put the brakes to anunwelcome MarketLink project, the state of New Jersey and thestate’s Department of Law and Public Safety called on FERC lastweek to rescind and vacate the certificate approving constructionof the controversial pipeline expansion through the northern partof the state, and to treat sponsor Transcontinental Gas Pipe LineCorp.’s recent request to amend the project as a new application.

Houston-based Dynegy Marketing and Trade has beat out some ofthe top natural gas producers in the nation in the latest round ofbidding for Minerals Management Service’s royalty-in kind gasproduced from federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico.

Houston-based Dynegy Marketing and Trade has beat out some ofthe top natural gas producers in the nation in the latest round ofbidding for Minerals Management Service’s royalty-in kind gasproduced from federal leases in the Gulf of Mexico.