Rate

Cash prices kept rising Wednesday but at a considerably slowerrate than on Monday and Tuesday. Most of the new increases werearound a nickel or less, and the Northern California points ofMalin and the PG&E citygate actually fell slightly afterPG&E elected not to extend a low-linepack OFO. Sourcesindicated some retreat is likely today, saying the cash market hadmilked just about all the upside possible out of recent forecastsfor colder weather. In addition, the screen’s decline of nearly adime Wednesday should be a negative influence, they said.

FERC last week clarified that the controversial “rate reductionmechanism” (RRM) in the capacity contract between Dynegy Marketingand Trade and El Paso Natural Gas is “not an unlawful practice orcontract” under the Natural Gas Act. Commissioner William Massey,however, issued a blistering attack not only against the RRM, butthe entire El Paso-Dynegy transaction.

FERC earlier this week clarified that the “rate reductionmechanism” (RRM) in the capacity contract between Dynegy Marketingand Trade and El Paso Natural Gas is “not an unlawful practice orcontract” under the Natural Gas Act. Commissioner William Massey,however, issued a blistering attack against the RRM and the entireEl Paso-Dynegy transaction.

ANR notified interruptible storage customers under the DDS andMBS rate schedules that they will be limited to zero net injectionsduring the Sept. 1-Oct. 31 period. Injections will be allowed intoDDS/MBS accounts only if the customer withdraws an equal or greateramount of gas prior to Nov. 1.

The Exploration Company (TXCO) is on a roll in Southwest Texaswith another high producer, its ninth consecutive successfulnatural gas well in the Prickly Pear (Glen Rose) Field west of SanAntonio, near the Mexican border.

A proposal by Reliant Energy Gas Transmission (NorAm) for a newhourly firm transportation service and rate schedule to meetpeaking needs of the power industry drew few objections in atechnical conference at FERC Thursday.

Unocal Corp.’s Spirit Energy 76 unit recorded a 64% success ratein its core Gulf of Mexico shelf exploration program during 1998,including four new discoveries during December. For the full-year,Spirit Energy had 21 discoveries on the shelf. Preliminaryinformation indicates the company replaced about 100% of its 1998production with new reserves (excluding sales), increasedproduction from year-ago levels, and continued to developadditional attractive exploration prospects.

Cash prices kept climbing higher Tuesday, though not at thedazzling rate of Monday’s run-up. New gains of 20-40 cents at manypoints were still pretty impressive, though.

Anadarko Petroleum said its annual energy production is expectedto grow at an average rate of 18% per year, from 48 million energyequivalent barrels (EEBs) in 1998 to an estimated 92 million EEBsin 2002. The company said the new production forecast is based ondevelopment of known fields and does not include any newexploration discoveries.