Negative

Effective until further notice, Florida Gas Transmission issuedan Overage Alert Day notice for its market area Wednesday. Thenotice has a 10% tolerance for negative daily imbalances.

Cash prices finally experienced some retrenchment Thursdayfollowing an awe-inspiring series of growth spurts during May, buta near-total collapse of the screen along with the usual dropoff inweekend demand is expected to result in significantly greaterdeclines today.

Florida Gas Transmission continued an Overage Alert Day notice (seeDaily GPI, May 25) through Thursday anduntil further notice, but loosened the tolerance for negative dailyimbalances slightly to 3%.

Florida Gas Transmission issued an Overage Alert Day noticeWednesday, effective until further notice. The 2% tolerance fornegative daily imbalances is considerably more stringent than thosein OAD notices earlier this month.

After a brief foray in negative territory, natural gas futuresbubbled higher yesterday, preserving bulls’ 6-day and countingstring of price advances. With yesterday’s 4.2-cent rise, the Junecontract has climbed almost 40 cents from $3.01 lows notched on May5. June closed at $3.396.

Citing significant demand, Florida Gas Transmission issued anOverage Alert Day notice Tuesday for its market area. The noticehad a 10% tolerance for negative daily imbalances, but FGTsaid itmay reduce the percentage if conditions do not improve. Thepipeline, which previously re-evaluated system operations eachmorning before announcing whether an OAD would be extended, nowsays the notices will remain in effect “until further notice.”

Stung by a negative financial report from an independentnewsletter that dropped its stock price 17%, San Jose, CA-basedCalpine Corp. reacted quickly last week to reiterate its aggressivestrategy for developing groups of gas-fired merchant power plantsthroughout the U.S. over the next five to 10 years. It also said itwould continue to grow its related power and gas marketingoperations.

Stung by a negative financial report from an independentnewsletter that left its stock price down $18/share, or about 17%on Friday, San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. reacted quickly Mondayto reiterate its aggressive strategy for developing groups ofgas-fired merchant power plants throughout the U.S. over the nextfive to 10 years. It also said it would continue to grow itsrelated power and gas marketing operations.

Once again Friday traders who expected the cash market tosuccumb finally to the negative price pressures that have beenbuilding up were left wondering where its support is coming from.Even though the normal drop in demand associated with a weekendseemed real enough, sources said, quotes were flat to down just atouch in nearly all cases.