Monday

Adding to losses sustained in the Monday evening Access tradingsession, gas futures continued lower yesterday in sympathy withfree falling physical prices and in expectation of a bearishstorage report today. After gapping a hefty 7 cents lower to openat $2.44 the spot month October sifted lower throughout the sessionto close down 9.2 cents at $2.427. Heavy estimated volume of 89,223served to authenticate the move lower.

After advising on its bulletin board Monday that it wasmonitoring conditions for the necessity of an OFO, Florida GasTransmission issued an Overage Alert Day notice Tuesday due to highmarket-area demand. The notice applies to the system east ofStation 12 (Santa Rosa County in the Florida Panhandle) and carriesa 4% tolerance for negative daily imbalances. The pipeline willdecide this morning whether to extend the notice through today’sgas day.

Sonat declared a force majeure in connection with maintenancethat began Monday at its No.2 delivery point into East TennesseeNatural Gas and will last for about three weeks. No nominationswill be scheduled at the point during this project, Sonat said.

Mexico last Monday lifted its 4% tariff on natural gas importedfrom the United States, the Energy Ministry announced. This clearsthe way for expanded gas sales by U.S. companies into thefast-growing markets in northern Mexico.

Southern Union’s plan to take its merger proposal straight toSouthwest Gas shareholders was dismantled Monday, as SouthernUnion’s two court actions intended on delaying the merger betweenSouthwest and Oneok were rejected. Southwest Gas shareholders areexpected to vote in favor of the merger today. Southern Uniondeclined to comment.

Fueled by follow-through buying on the heels of Monday advances,the futures market ambled higher yesterday as traders weighed theimpact of bullish news expected to be released this afternoon. TheSeptember contract finished up to 2.3 cents at $2.598. Impressiveadvances were also seen in the out months with the October,November and December contracts notching similar gains.

Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania filed its restructuring plan withthe Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission Monday in an effort toexpand its supplier choice program statewide. As part of theNatural Gas Choice and Competition Act passed by the PennsylvaniaGeneral Assembly June 17, each gas utility is required to submit arestructuring plan to the PUC by Nov. 1.

El Paso Energy’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Consolidated NaturalGas’ CNG Transmission jointly unveiled the Atlantic AllianceProject on Monday. If successful, this project will transport up to750,000 Dth/d from Chicago market center and the Niagara ImportPoint into eastern markets.

Following the lead established late Monday, natural gas futurescontinued higher yesterday day as short-term traders bought intothe rally. The August contract closed up 3.2 cents at $2.176,shortly after notching its $2.18 high trade for the day.