Prices

Winter was retaining a tougher post-season grip on severalregions’ weather than expected Tuesday, and the result waswidespread price rises that ranged from flat to barely higher atthe PG&E citygate and Rockies, to about a quarter at someNortheast and Pacific Northwest points. A sharply higher Aprilfutures contract also lent some support to cash on its penultimateday of trading, sources said.

Prices emerged from the weekend flat to slightly higher or lowerMonday at nearly all points outside the declining California andRockies/San Juan markets. There probably would have been moreeastern softness, sources said, if weather in the Northeast andMidwest hadn’t exhibited more of a tendency to retreat back intowinter, rather than press forward into spring. Even the South wasseeing more chill than normal for this time of year.

Amid a steady stream of non-commercial selling, natural gasfutures tumbled lower yesterday morning, renewing fears that themarket may not have reached a bottom and further losses arepossible. Plunging to its lowest level in more than three months,the April contract took the selling on the chin yesterday, falling15.7 cents to close at $5.006. Volume at Nymex was healthy with anestimated 56,626 contracts changing hands.

Prices tended to flatten out in most cases Thursday, and severalsources believe that barring any drastic weather changes, themarket is due for more sideways trading for at least the next fewdays.

Spurred by high gas prices over the last few months, GeorgiaSen. Regina Thomas (D-Savannah) is leading a charge to reverse the1997 deregulation legislation, and re-regulate natural gas in thestate.

Soaring California gas prices and rapidly rising gas demandmainly for power generation the Pacific Northwest and Californiahas prompted an expansion of the PG&E Gas TransmissionNorthwest (GTN) system. The pipeline said last week it plans tofile with FERC in April for a small initial expansion project fornext year but potentially could add 1 Bcf/d of capacity over thenext decade.

The extremely higher costs of natural gas and electricity lastyear are reflected in the financial results announced Tuesday byone of the Pacific Northwest’s major combination energy companies,Bellevue, WA-based Puget Energy. The holding company for the stateof Washington’s largest investor-owned utility, Puget Sound Energy,recorded $40 million in receivables for excess power provided toCalifornia’s independent grid operator, Cal-ISO.

Weather that either was already bringing snow or was expected todo so soon in several regions, accompanied by some initial screensupport, pushed the cash market sharply higher Thursday at nearlyall points. Only the PG&E citygate and Southern Californiaborder registered drops amid overall gains of about 50 cents ormore. Many of the larger increases were clustered in the snowyRockies/Pacific Northwest.

Prices continued to fall in most markets Tuesday, but at aconsiderably slower pace than the previous day’s plunges. Mostdecreases were around 30 cents or less, while California points andStanfield achieved gains from a little less than a dime to about 35cents as more seasonable weather returned to the West Coast.