Made

“You can’t win the game if you give the ball away” was aseemingly logical but somewhat superfluous observation made byHoward Cosell on Monday Night Football back in the 1980s. If Cosellwere to have commented on the natural gas futures market yesterday,he probably would have said something like, “The market couldn’tmove lower because there was no additional selling.” And althoughthat comment would also have been redundant, it aptly describes thenature of yesterday’s price action at the New York MercantileExchange, where once early selling dried up, the market was free tobubble higher in near-frictionless trade. The May contract finishedup 3.2 cents to $2.128.

In an effort to capture the rewards and pass along savings madepossible by performance-based rates, NIPSCO Industries and its newaffiliate Bay State Gas are combining gas supply operations. TheMidwest and New England LDCs manage firm loads of about 500 MMcf/dand most of that will be procured on the daily spot market in thefuture, said NIPSCO’s Dan Gavito, vice president of corporate gassupply.

Former Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Moler and Washingtonattorney Katherine B. Edwards have made the list of candidatesbeing considered by the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) tosucceed former President Nicholas J. Bush, who departed last monthamid allegations that he defrauded the trade group out of more than$2.4 million, sources say.

Dominion Resources Inc. (DRI) made its third move of 1999 andits second in less than a week to position itself as a major gasand power player in the Northeast and Midwest. Following on theheels of Monday’s announcement that DRI will acquire ConsolidatedNatural Gas (CNG), subsidiary Dominion Energy said Wednesday itwill make a $34 million (C$50 million) cash offer for RemingtonEnergy Ltd., a publicly traded gas E&P company headquartered inCalgary, AB.

Houston-based Seagull Energy Corp. said it garnered about $52.5million in gross proceeds from asset dispositions made during thefinal months of 1998. The money will be used to cut debt.

Enron Corp. made an SC13D filing with the Securities andExchange Commission on Tuesday to inform the commission it hasreceived an unsolicited offer for its 53.5% share of Enron Oil andGas, one of the largest independent gas producers in the U.S.According to the solicitation, the unnamed third party wouldacquire Enron’s shares in EOG and make an offer for all theoutstanding shares. The third party also would require that Enrondispose of certain other assets.

PG&E Energy Trading Canada Corp. has made a deal with BC Gasfor capacity on the BC Gas Southern Crossing Pipeline project andfor provision of peaking services to BC Gas, pending regulatoryapprovals. BC Gas last week re-filed for construction of theSouthern Crossing Pipeline, a loop of existing pipeline linked tothe north-south Westcoast Energy pipeline connecting to BritishColumbia and the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The pipeline to linkAlberta gas to the Huntingdon, BC, market area is scheduled tobegin operation Nov. 1, 2000.

The meltdown of the early December aftermarket continued Tuesdayalthough many points made small rallies late in the day from theirbottom levels of the morning. Prices in nearly all production areaswest of Appalachia sank well below $1.50-a level in the “old days”at which many producers used to consider summer shut-ins. ThePG&E citygate was one of the only points still registeringquotes above $2.

The hypervolatility in swing deals done Friday for Nov. 1-2 madeit difficult to gauge where the cash market was moving Monday. Butthe overall mix of flat to about a dime or so up or down (includingjust about all points in between) amounted to a general wash thattilted a little bit to the negative side, sources said. Besides,they added, it was generally a quiet day for most traders as theytook stock of bidweek and prospects for the upcoming days.