Marked

On a day marked with impressive statistics from Rocky Mountain producers and a handful of protesters objecting to one of the luncheon speakers — Interior Secretary Gale Norton — the opening session of the 13th Annual Rocky Mountain Natural Gas Strategy Conference took the high road Tuesday, with speakers touting social and environmental responsibilities as the keys to sustainable shareholder profit in the future.

In a week marked by dealing and squealing on each side, Canadian Superior Energy Inc. said last week that Canadian 88’s decision to “arbitrarily postpone” a special shareholders’ meeting to vote on a takeover bid proposed by Canadian Superior was imposing an “unnecessary delay on its own shareholders” and was continuing to “fail to provide shareholders with an alternative transaction, or even to indicate a going forward strategy for the company.”

With the weather heating up and power alerts being declared, Monday marked another day of heavy duty political rallies and advertising blitzes in California even though this is an off year for elections as Gov. Gray Davis and Southern California Edison Co. sought to inject a grass root’s element to their separate conservation and state legislative campaigns.

Unlike the East-West price movement division that markedFriday’s and Monday’s trading, the cash market returned Tuesday toa unified trend that resembled last Thursday’s: down considerably.

Thursday marked the first time bears took firm control of themarket all week, as most price points fell between a nickel and 10cents. A large majority of the deals were made through the weekend,as many trading offices were expected to be sparsely populated onGood Friday.

Wednesday marked the first time in a week that double-digitmoves were nowhere to be found in the cash market. Most pointsregistered small gains of 2 to 5 cents, feeding off a strongfutures screen and a bullish American Gas Association (AGA) storagereport of a 26 Bcf injection.

After three consecutive days marked by the bullish pattern ofhigher highs and higher lows, the futures market receded yesterdayon a wave of selling pressure by both commercial and local traders.June wilted into its daily close, tumbling 8.1 cents lower tofinish at $2.262.

The hemorrhaging of prices that marked the first two days oftrading in the December aftermarket came to a virtual standstillWednesday even as unseasonably warm weather continued in much ofthe nation east of the Rockies. Except for an increase of more thana dime into Northwest at Sumas, all points were either flat or upor down only a few pennies. The reason for the surge at Sumas andwhy it was handily outstripping Rockies prices was that distributorBC Gas in southern British Columbia was drawing more heavily thanusual on discretionary supplies, one source said.

Nine months after acquiring MidCon Corp., KN Energy citedimprovements in all areas of operations and reported a markedincrease in earnings for the first three quarters of 1998.