Lehman

Ending a rocky week of commodity and equity market ups and downs that was dominated by news of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the sales of Merrill Lynch and Constellation Energy, October natural gas futures on Friday ended up quietly closing at $7.531, down 9 cents on the day but 16.5 cents higher than the previous week’s close.

PPL Corp. will conduct a sales process for its natural gas distribution business, PPL Gas Utilities Corp., and propane business, Penn Fuel Propane, the company said Monday. These businesses represented about 1% of PPL’s overall earnings from ongoing operations in 2006.

With the expectation that the injection season will end with gas storage at 200 Bcf above the five-year average, Lehman Brothers cut its price forecast for the rest of the year to $7/MMBtu from $7.75/MMBtu “to reflect the turmoil that the oversupply may cause in the market in the next several months.”

With the expectation that the injection season will end with gas storage at 200 Bcf above the five-year average, Lehman Brothers cut its price forecast for the rest of the year to $7/MMBtu from $7.75/MMBtu “to reflect the turmoil that the oversupply may cause in the market in the next several months.”

Southern Star Central Corp. announced Thursday that it has hired Lehman Brothers to help it explore strategic alternatives for its Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline company, including potentially forming a master limited partnership, selling the company, holding an initial public offering or other options.

Southern Star Central Corp. announced Thursday that it has hired Lehman Brothers to help it explore strategic alternatives for its Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline company, including potentially forming a master limited partnership, selling the company, holding an initial public offering or other options.

With its energy trading unit now sold, Entergy-Koch LP retained Lehman Brothers last week to coordinate offers to sell subsidiary Gulf South Pipeline Co. LP. The Houston-based pipeline is jointly owned by Entergy Corp. and Koch Industries Inc., and is part of the companies’ overall plan to disband their partnership.

With its energy trading unit now sold, Entergy-Koch LP retained Lehman Brothers to coordinate offers to sell subsidiary Gulf South Pipeline Co. LP. The Houston-based pipeline is jointly owned by Entergy Corp. and Koch Industries Inc., and is part of the companies’ overall plan to disband their partnership.

Lehman Brothers analyst Jeffrey W. Robertson is pessimistic about Stone Energy being able to meet its 2003 and 2004 gas production targets and has lowered his share price projections on the company.