Muscles

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) flexed its muscles on Thursday, revealing its strong position in the U.S. over-the-counter (OTC) natural gas market. The exchange said about one million natural gas contracts have been cleared through its system since March with a notional value of about $10 billion. ICE said it also set a new daily cleared volume record for natural gas transactions in the United Kingdom on Thursday and has cleared more than one billion therms in the that country since September.

Calling 2000 a watershed year for the natural gas market issomewhat akin to saying 1776 was an important time in U.S. history.With only a couple of exceptions, last year began with all spotprice indexes between $2 and $3. It ended with January 2001 indexesranging from $8.56 (Questar) to $18.81 (Transco Zone 6-NYC).

Houston-based Dynegy Inc., setting itself up as likely competition for current online trading king EnronOnline, has launched Dynegydirect, its own B2B trading site for energy and communications commodities. The new system will give its customers self-service access to bid and offer prices across U.S. power, natural gas and natural gas liquids products.

Houston-based Dynegy Inc., setting itself up as possiblecompetition for its cross-town Houston marketer Enron, has launchedDynegydirect, a B2B trading site for energy and communicationscommodities, which will give customers self-service access to bidand offer prices across U.S. power, natural gas and natural gasliquids products. CEO Chuck Watson said the site would extend thecompany’s “global reach through customized electronic solutions.”

Except for a lackluster, slightly lower performance at severalNortheast citygates, the cash market was flexing its muscles like avain pro wrestler Thursday. Price hikes that generally rangedbetween a nickel and a dime dominated the landscape, althoughCalifornia firming was milder except at capacity-constrained Malin.

Calpine Corp. jumped into the center of the energy industryM&A activity last week, as it made bids to purchase Houston,TX-based Sheridan Energy and acquire 80% of Cogeneration Corp. ofAmerica (CGCA). Both mergers are expected to be completed by theend of the year.

The screen may have decided to take a breather Monday afterflexing its muscles so impressively last week, but the heated cashmarket showed no signs of settling down. Western quotes stagedtheir by-now-familiar retaking of ground lost over the weekend, andthis time they actually shared in the general bull market by risingin greater amounts than they had fallen on the previous Friday.Eastern points, on the other hand, continued to build on the upwardtrend they had seen all of last week.