Look

The futures market wasted little time continuing lower yesterdayadding to losses registered Wednesday evening following the releaseof the weekly AGA storage report. That report, showing alarger-than-expected 93 Bcf injection gave storage bears somethingto chew on. The August contract opened near its high then tumbled9.9 cents to settle at $2.132 in active trading yesterday.

Convergence of gas and electricity is no longer a trend on thehorizon but rather the law of the land. Anyone doubting this needonly look at who the big players are in both commodities, notedKenneth D. Rice, CEO of Enron Capital & Trade Resources (ECT).

Look for NGC to focus its efforts on growing the powergeneration segment of its energy store concept of providing gas,power and gas liquids, CEO Chuck Watson told reporters in HoustonMonday. “We are going to optimize and strategically grow our powergeneration assets. Greater than 50%, probably almost 75%, of ouravailable cash flow in this company over the next several yearswill be in power generation, either greenfield projects, merchantplants, or in possibly acquiring some of these plants that are spunoff from the utilities over the next several years.”

California regulators are expected to begin taking a much closerlook next week at proposals to curb market power in the state’s gasindustry, and their decisions could rapidly accelerate convergenceof the gas and electric industries. Included among the proposals isa plan to force the state’s major utilities to divest gastransmission and storage assets and form an independent gastransmission system operator, replicating part of what was done inthe state’s power industry. California natural gas industryrestructuring proceedings are scheduled to move into overdriveduring four day-long hearings starting April 6 in San Francisco.