Open

The futures market was poised to continue lower Wednesday, butafter a lower open failed to entice additional selling,short-covering became the feature of the day. That gave theDecember contract the opportunity it needed to trend into positiveterritory yesterday morning, before settling at $2.213 at theclosing bell. Estimated volume was 75,306.

Western Hub Properties, LLC (WHP) said subsidiary Lodi GasStorage is holding an open season Nov. 2-20 for 4 Bcf of workinggas capacity with an average of six cycles per year at its proposedgas storage facility in a depleted producing field near Lodi, CA,20 miles south of Sacramento. The facility would provide servicedirectly to Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) Line 401 nearthe Antioch Terminal in the heart of PG&E’s market. The companyplans to file an application in November to build the facility nextyear with service starting in November 1999.

After gapping lower at the open for the second day in a row,natural gas futures continued to free-fall in lackluster holidaytrading Monday. Weak cash market pricing and a quicklydeteriorating technical picture were cited as reasons for the10.2-cent decline in the November contract. By settling at $2.089,November has dropped over 30 cents in the last three tradingsessions.

The futures market wasted little time in continuing higherMonday, gapping higher on the open en route to a technicalcorrection that left the September contract up 16.4 cents to settleat $2.041. Sources said Monday’s rally was follow-through buying onthe heels of Friday’s strong close coupled with “nervousspeculators” covering sizeable short positions. Estimated volumeconfirmed the active trading with an estimated 83,239 contractschanging hands.

Friday was a day of tests at the New York Mercantile Exchange.The market pushed lower on the open to test support at $1.81 onlyto rebound in the hopes of knocking out resistance at $1.875.However, both attempts failed and the September contract was leftto close at $1.833, almost unchanged for the day.

California regulators are scheduled today to take additionalsteps to open up the natural gas business by removing allrestrictions to the core aggregation program and unbundling gasutility billing services so nonutility firms can compete to providethat function. The actions are part of a larger program aimed atmaking a final decision on gas industry restructuring by the end ofthis year.

Traders love to fill in chart gaps and Monday’s strong open leftnot a wide chasm, but a small and clearly defined gap between $2.04and $2.05. To that end, sellers wasted no time Tuesday in pushingthe July contract lower. And once the gap was filled in thecontract continued to fall, settling at $1.989, down 11.1 cents.

Retail energy service providers and marketers now have an addedpotential way to reach into California’s mass market residentialand small business customers by buying part of the utility billingenvelope space. Under new state regulatory rules, investor-ownedenergy utilities (IOUs) are opening access to their ubiquitousbills that are mailed regularly to millions of customers.

The amount of nuclear plant capacity that has been eitherpermanently shut down or has been slated for closure in the Midwestand Northeast will create a potential new market of up to 1.55 Tcfper year for natural gas in those two regions, according to anupdated Washington International Energy Group (WIEG) study due tobe released Wednesday.