Otherwise

San Juan Basin flatness was the exception to Thursday’s anticipated continuing slide in prices. Otherwise, losses between a nickel and a little over a dime in the Rockies/Pacific Northwest, California and intra-Alberta were fairly moderate in comparison with declines ranging from about a dime to nearly 30 cents elsewhere.

Duke Energy’s $1.2 billion sale of Australian energy assets in March enabled the company to post a 48% increase in first quarter net income to $334 million, or 36 cents/share, but excluding one-time charges, earnings fell to 32 cents/share from 42 cents/share in 1Q2003, and missed Wall Street estimates of 37 cents/share. Duke shares were down 4% Thursday following the announcement to $20.98/share.

Duke Energy’s $1.2 billion sale of Australian energy assets in March enable the company to post a 48% increase in first quarter net income to $334 million, or 36 cents/share, but excluding one-time charges, earnings fell to 32 cents/share from 42 cents/share in 1Q2003, and missed Wall Street estimates of 37 cents/share. Duke shares were down 4% Thursday to $20.98.

While noting his company’s good fortune to be thriving currently in the otherwise troubled energy sector, Sempra Energy’s CEO Stephen Baum last week reiterated in a third quarter financial results conference call that the company wants to stay “flexible” so it can go after assets that are increasingly being sold at deep discounts. Baum specifically mentioned trading books as being on Sempra’s radar screen.

While noting his company’s good fortune to be thriving currently in the otherwise troubled energy sector, Sempra Energy’s CEO Stephen Baum Tuesday reiterated in a third quarter financial results conference call that the company wants to stay “flexible” so it can go after assets that are increasingly being sold at deep discounts. Baum specifically mentioned trading books as being on Sempra’s radar screen.

Marketer rankings by volume clearly do matter; otherwise energy companies wouldn’t go out of their way to deceive investors and counterparties by doing “round-trip” or “wash” trades, which are purely designed to boost volumes and trading revenues. Reliant, Dynegy and CMS last week all admitted to round-trip trading, in which two companies buy and sell back a given volume of gas or power at the same price to give the appearance of larger trading operations.

What may be bullish traders’ last weather hope in an otherwise disappointingly mild winter was developing Monday, but the price reaction was somewhat subdued. Most eastern points ranged from flat to slightly more than a nickel higher, while western gains tended to be larger at about a nickel to nearly 15 cents. The stronger performance in the West was largely attributed to recovery from weekend softening, the absence of high-linepack OFOs in California and demand in the Midwest for more Rockies supplies.

The bloom was off the Northeast price rose Friday as weekendcitygate quotes began plunging back to earth. The non-Northeastmarket ranged from flat to a little more than a nickel higher.

Once again all of the “hot” price action Friday occurred in theNortheast, and that’s because it was downright bone-chilling there.This time it was the turn of Algonquin citygates to occupy the toprung of the pricing ladder as they ran up more than $1.00 into the$4.80s and peaked at $6.50. A large aggregator said she later heardintra-day citygates trading as high as $8. She and another sourcesaid Algonquin was curtailing all IT and 50% of Secondary Firmservice downstream of the Cromwell (CT) Compressor Station Fridayand cutting Secondary Firm to zero past Cromwell for Saturday. Thataffected all deliveries to Boston, Rhode Island and the easternhalf of Connecticut, one said.