Poised

Amid warnings that natural gas supplies are poised to tighten upin the United States, Canadian exporters are lining up to fill anygap. As Joe Foster, chairman of the U.S. National PetroleumCouncil, voiced concerns over the future of American supplies,ProGas Ltd. filed the first application to Canada’s National EnergyBoard for a long-term license for exports via Alliance PipelineProject as soon as it is completed in October of 2000.

Amid warnings that natural gas supplies are poised to tighten upin the United States, Canadian exporters are lining up to fill anygap. As Joe Foster, chairman of the U.S. National PetroleumCouncil, voiced concerns over the future of American supplies,ProGas Ltd. filed the first application to Canada’s National EnergyBoard for a long-term license for exports via Alliance PipelineProject as soon as it is completed in October of 2000.

The New England electric market is getting crowded, so crowdedthat a Florida-based utility poised to move into that market now istrying to get out of an $846 million deal to purchase Mainegenerating assets.

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.

The futures market was poised to trade higher yesterday onmomentum gained from a string of advances dating back to lastThursday, but revised forecasts calling for seasonable temperaturesand a lack of technical direction took the wind out of bull-tradersails, allowing the market to slip lower. For the second day in arow, changes were more pronounced in the December contract than theprompt month. November slid 2.2 cents lower to settle at $2.18, butDecember lost 2.8 cents to $2.455.

Fresh off Wednesday’s advance the futures market looked poisedto continue higher Thursday as early buying prompted the market upat the open. However, a 25-cent gain in two days was more than eventhe greediest of bulls could handle, and the market reacted bytrending down. That left the November contract with a 1.9 cent lossto settle at $2.414 at the final bell.

Distributed generation is poised to get a boost from the GasResearch Institute (GRI) and Architectural Energy Corp., which havedeveloped new software to evaluate the economic viability ofon-site distributed generation projects for utility customers.

Futures traders spent most of Monday in a “wait’n-see position”poised to react quickly if the market broke in either direction.However, no fresh news could be gleaned from yesterday’s market andas a result the market took what has become the path of leastresistance lately to move lower in quiet trade. The Septembercontract slipped 2.1 cents to $1.926.

The futures market opened stronger Wednesday, and looked poisedto remain range-bound ahead of the weekly American Gas Association(AGA) storage report. But a crowd of sellers came out in theafternoon, sending the September contract down 6.8 cents to $1.917.Estimated volume was 83,479.