Positive

Bears continued to roam the gas price woods Tuesday in nearly all markets. Overly warm and power-short California was the major exception where prices for deliveries at the PG&E Citygate and at the Southern Border into PG&E were up sharply.

Although Illinois is showing positive signs of retail market growth, questions remain as to whether the wholesale market in Illinois is robust enough to support a competitive retail market, according to a recent report by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) assessing retail and wholesale market competition in the state’s electric industry.

After funneling lower for most of the week, natural gas futures finished on a positive note Friday, amid a late flurry of trading and speculative short-covering. Just when it appeared that futures would head listlessly into the weekend with its fourth straight down day, the market erupted higher in the last 85 minutes of trading, propelling the May contract to a 2.7-cent gain at $5.128.

Pacific Gas & Electric extended a systemwide Stage 3high-inventory OFO through at least today, but loosened thetolerance for positive daily imbalances from 1% to 3%. The utilitycontinued to project linepack rising well above its maximum targetlevels through Saturday.

After a positive surprise with its fourth quarter earningsperformance, Phillips Petroleum continued to astonish observerslast week, buying Tosco Corp. in a $7 billion stock transactionthat will make Phillips the second-largest refining company in theUnited States with a capacity of 1.7 MMbbl/d.

Seeking to put a positive spin on the state’s first foray intolong-term bulk electricity contracts, Gov. Gray Davis Tuesdayannounced that the state has reached agreement for the commercialterms on an unspecified number of contracts between the state waterresources department and bulk power suppliers, with volumes phasingupward from 500 to 5,000 MW over several years.

After a positive surprise with its fourth quarter earningsperformance, Phillips Petroleum continued to astonish observersover the weekend, buying Tosco Corp. in a $7 billion stocktransaction that will make Phillips the second-largest refiningcompany in the United States with a capacity of 1.7 MMbbl/d.

Buoyed by gains achieved in the overnight Access tradingsession, natural gas futures finished on a positive note Friday, asshort covering took back a small percentage of last week’s massivelosses. The February contract led the way, rumbling 32.3 centshigher to close at $7.459. Meanwhile, the out months were muchquieter with smaller gains in March, April and May almost offsetby modest losses in the rest of the strip.

Detroit Edison reported that its unique bid-phased electricchoice program in Michigan continues to receive a positive responsefrom new participants using the system. The fifth and final bidphase of the program showed that demand for capacity on itsdistribution system again exceeded the amount of space available,as the company received over 70 requests.