Monday

Due to nominations exceeding capacity, Transwestern wasallocating capacity Monday on the San Juan Lateral, affecting 18points.

Tennessee delayed pigging operations on the Blue Water System,originally scheduled for Monday and today (see Daily GPI, March 6), tentatively until Thursday andFriday of this week. No service restrictions are expected, butproducers may experience higher than normal pressures.

After reaching a new life-of-the-contract high on Monday,follow-through technical buying propelled the April gas futurescontract sharply higher again yesterday. April ended the regulartrading session up 7.5 cents at $2.761 after reaching a high of$2.770. The low for the day was 10 cents down from that at $2.660.May climbed 7.6 cents to $2.771 and the summer strip (Apr.-Oct.)ended the day very strong at $2.786, up 6.5 cents for the session.

Fresh off a neat, 13-cent gain Monday, the futures marketrumbled higher yesterday as fundamental traders braced for asizable storage withdrawal today and technicians set their sightson resistance levels from late last year.

Propelled by a technical boost following Monday’s 23-centdecline, the natural gas futures market rallied during the firsthour of trading Tuesday as traders took profits on newlyestablished short positions. But after peaking at $2.31 momentsafter 11 A.M. EST, the December contract once again fell victim tothe same negative weather pattern that has weighed on prices theentire month. That downward momentum quickly took back the earlieradvances, depositing December to $2.189, down 0.8 cents for theday.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed last Monday to hear appeals byUSX-Marathon and Mobil regarding the drilling ban on leasesoffshore North Carolina. The two producers want to be refunded the$156 million they spent in 1981 on leases that became subject to adrilling ban in 1990 when Congress adopted the Outer BanksProtection Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to hear appeals byUSX-Marathon and Mobil regarding the drilling ban on leasesoffshore North Carolina. The two producers spent $156 million in1981 on leases that became subject to a drilling ban in 1990 whenCongress adopted the Outer Banks Protection Act.

Northern Natural Gas took its Plains Turbine down Monday forabout three weeks of unplanned repairs. The outage affects 100,000MMbtu/d at nine points on the Hobbs System in southeastern NewMexico.

After etching out a wide, 20-cent trading range Monday andTuesday, natural gas futures traded sideways yesterday in a rare,low volume and low volatility trading session. Little in the way offresh news was seen to nudge prices in either direction, leavingthe November contract to slip 2.9-cents to $2.978 in pre-AGA profittaking. Estimated volume was an extremely-light 53,060 contracts.