Natural

Buoyed by cash market buying interest, natural gas futuresshuffled higher Friday as traders covered shorts ahead of theweekend. After opening at $2.755, the November contract climbedbriskly to its $2.82 high shortly after 11 am EDT. Once the initialbuying push subsided, the spot month moved mostly sideways for therest of the session to settle at $2.793, a 4.9-cent gain for theday.

California, as the nation’s early poster child for energyindustry restructuring, has to bite the bullet and decide if itwants robust retail competition for natural gas and electricity, orwhether it wants to stop where it is now with wholesalecompetition, “declare victory and everyone go home,” said thestate’s top energy regulator, Richard Bilas, an economist andpresident of the California Public Utilities Commission. If itwants retail competition, then the state should consider adoptingsome of the aspects of Georgia’s gas restructuring andPennsylvania’s electricity changes.

In its latest study, the Gas Research Institute (GRI) predictednatural gas will dominate the market share among competing fuelsfor industrial energy demand over the next 15 years. Currently,industrial demand accounts for 45% of all gas consumption. Thestudy, released last week, was prepared by the GRI and Energy andEnvironmental Analysis Inc.

Portland Natural Gas Transmission System is holding an open season through Oct. 22 on its PNGTS Pipeline to elicit interest regarding new transportation services such as access to an interconnect with Algonquin’s HubLine project and consequently, to the lucrative Boston power generation market.

Natural gas marketers on average have done a poor job ofsatisfying their customers this year, according to a biennialreport issued by Mastio & Co. last week. Thirty-six out of 77marketers got unsatisfactory report cards from their customers inthis area compared to 1997, it said, while only 16 marketers showedimprovement.

KN Energy’s once under-subscribed Natural Gas Pipeline ofAmerica (NGPL), won its second major capacity subscription of theweek yesterday as it agreed to continue providing Nicor Gas, parentof Northern Illinois Gas Co., with gas transportation and bothnominated and delivered storage services for the next three years.No financial terms of the contract were disclosed. The renewalbecomes effective April 1.

The November natural gas futures contract closed down 3.1 centsyesterday at $2.824 after trimming gains notched earlier in thesession. After a spirited sell-off in Tuesday’s Access trading, thenewly crowned prompt month erupted higher Wednesday to print a$2.94 high as buyers picked up contracts which they hope willrepresent bargains heading into the winter heating season. Byafternoon, however, the market banter had turned once again tobearish storage predictions and that pressured the market lower inlight trade.

Portland Natural Gas Transmission System will hold an openseason from Oct. 1 to Oct. 22 on its PNGTS Pipeline to elicitinterest regarding new transportation services such as access to aninterconnect with Algonquin’s HubLine project, and consequently, tothe lucrative Boston power generation market.

Calpine Corp. announced it has bought the development rights tobuild, own and operate a 500 MW natural gas-fired cogen facility inPittsburg, CA, from Enron Corp. The Los Medanos Energy Center(formerly called the Pittsburg District Energy Facility) recentlywas licensed by the California Energy Commission after acomprehensive year-long environmental and technical review.Construction of the $350 million facility is underway.