Record

Record earnings from wholesale power marketing and generationand a 19% increase in operating margin from gas marketinghighlighted Dynegy Inc.’s sterling third quarter results.Continuing difficulties in the company’s liquids division anduncertainty over Nova Corp.’s plan to divest its 26% share in thecompany were more than counterbalanced by a three-fold increase inoperating margin from power marketing and trading.

Despite record production Enron Oil & Gas (EOG) reportedthird quarter net income of $5.9 million, down from $31.2 millionin the third quarter of 1997.

Last year set a 1990s record for exploration and productioncapital spending, but the five-year trend of capital spendingincreases may end this year with the first decline since 1992.That’s one finding of Global Upstream Performance Trends, a reviewof domestic and international results for 131 publicly tradedcompanies by Arthur Andersen and John S. Herold.

The futures screen may have been active Thursday but it waspretty quiet in the incremental cash market, a Houston trader said.Most points were flat to a bit softer, with the biggest drops ofabout a nickel or more occurring in the markets that had alreadybeen weak in the previous couple of days: the Rockies andCalifornia. Northeast citygates in Transco’s Zone 6 managed to ekeout small gains.

Despite reaching another record of 2,899 Bcf, Canadian gasimports grew by only 0.5%, or 15.4 Bcf, last year, which was thelowest growth level in the past 11 years, according to a report bythe Department of Energy. DOE attributed the slow-down to tightimport pipeline capacity. It also mentioned prices at gas importpoints (under long-term and short-term contracts) in 1997 averaged$2.11, 10% higher than average prices in 1996. The average price ofCanadian gas at major import points rose 46% over the past twoyears, DOE said.