Moving

November Henry Hub futures burst through the 40-day movingaverage at the open yesterday and never really looked back. Aftercrossing $2.859, speculative fund buyers jumped in, sending thecontract 10.2 cents higher for the day to $2.927/MMBtu. Decembergained 10.7 cents, settling at $3.120. January jumped 9.9 cents to$3.130, and February moved up 7.2 cents to $2.945.

Feeding off gains notched during the Wednesday evening Accesssession, the futures market climbed higher yesterday as traderscovered shorts positions created during the recent dip. However,after failing to punch through resistance at $2.70 early, theNovember contract slipped in the afternoon before finishing at$2.642, a 4.1-cent advance on the day.

The 1 Bcf/d Vector Pipeline project continued moving ahead asthe most likely new Midwest pipeline project to break ground andbegin construction. Westcoast Energy decided to grab a 30% equitystake and committed to take 240 MMcf/d of firm capacity in the $500million project. The transaction gives Westcoast a major stake ineach of three new gas pipeline projects that will form a newdelivery corridor to the Midwest, Northeast and eastern Canada fromthe Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

Gas-rich Texas is moving to include preferences for the fuel andfor distributed generation in electric industry restructuring.

Pacific Gas and Electric is attempting to block Denver-basedWestern Gas Resources’ plans for moving into a heavilyindustrialized part of the utility’s East San Francisco Bay serviceterritory by converting a proprietary gas pipeline to astate-regulated, open-access supply line serving proposed newmerchant power plants in Pittsburg, CA, along with surroundinglarge industrial loads.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is attempting to block Denver-basedWestern Gas Resources’ plans for moving into a heavilyindustrialized part of the utility’s East San Francisco Bay serviceterritory by converting a proprietary gas pipeline to astate-regulated, open-access supply line serving proposed newmerchant power plants in Pittsburg, CA, along with surroundinglarge industrial loads.

Electric deregulation is moving faster in the virtual world thanthe real world. While power choice has yet to sweep the land, threeproviders of Internet-based power trading are expanding/upgradingtheir systems to meet demand and improve system flexibility.

Electric deregulation is moving faster in the virtual world thanthe real world. While power choice has yet to sweep the land, threeproviders of Internet-based power trading are expanding/upgradingtheir systems to meet demand and improve system flexibility.

Southwest Gas Corp., Oneok Inc. and the Office of RatepayerAdvocates (ORA), the consumer advocacy arm of the California PublicUtilities Commission (CPUC), have submitted a joint recommendationto the CPUC that the proposed merger of Southwest and Oneok beapproved.