Renewed

PG&E Corp. CEO Robert Glynn told financial analysts Wednesday that he sees “much more certainty” for his company today than there was a year earlier. He envisions 2002 as a year in which PG&E’s major utility subsidiary clears bankruptcy, some assets are sold and the regulatory climate stabilizes even if market volatility does not.

With much of the U.S. and Canada still frigid from last week and renewed cold having returned to the South and Northeast, there was no surprise when prices rose nearly across the board Monday. There was quite a bit of variation among the amounts of increase, however. The Midcontinent/Midwest, Rockies, California and a few Gulf Coast points measured their gains generally in the vicinity of a dime or slightly more. The rest of the Gulf Coast tended to rise by either side of 20 cents, while Northeast citygates were up 30-55 cents.

Planalytics Inc. announced that Citizens Gas & Coke Utility has renewed its contract for Planalytics Gas Buyer(SM), a financial risk management tool for purchasing and hedging natural gas. “Planalytics Gas Buyer is a key part of our risk management strategy,” said Lindsay Lindgren, vice president of Gas Operations for Citizens Gas & Coke Utility. “The Gas Buyer’s year-ahead analysis of gas prices helps us sort through the day-to-day market volatility and bring increased price stability to our 262,000 customers.” The company’s Gas Buyer provides daily buying, selling or hedging actions designed to reduce risk and take advantage of opportunities presented by weather-driven effects on gas prices. The web-based tool combines long- range weather intelligence, weekly storage data, inventory change forecasts, real-time NYMEX futures contract pricing and advanced neural network technologies into an engine that determines if natural gas for any of the next twelve months is currently overvalued or undervalued. Planalytics said it is hosting a live Planalytics Gas Buyer web cast from 3:30 to 4:00 p.m. EST on Feb. 12 to show how its product works. The web cast can be accessed at www.planalytics.com/energy. Indianapolis, IN-based Citizens Gas & Coke Utility provides energy services to more than 262,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Marion County, IN.

Amid updated weather forecasts confirming the warming trend that is set to engulf the entire Eastern half of the nation this week, natural gas futures dove lower Tuesday, as traders returned from the holiday weekend and promptly liquidated long positions initiated early last week. February took the selling squarely on the chin, gapping lower at the open bell, and not once looking back as it came just one tick away from notching a new contract low at $2.094. It closed with an even 13-cent decline at $2.106.

Although the prospect for new rains and a renewed snowpack are not that many weeks off, the Pacific Northwest last week continued to grapple with the second worst drought in the region’s history of water level recordings.

The cash market continued to confound some people with its renewed strength Thursday, which several traders said appeared to be primarily psychological and associated with the appearance of a tropical depression in the mid-Atlantic. A screen gain of nearly 9 cents also provided support, and despite dwindling air conditioning load in other areas, power generation demand remained strong in the South.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) last week recommended that excess flow valves be installed in all new and renewed gas utility service lines, where feasible, as the result of an investigation of a gas explosion in a home that killed one member of a Loudoun County, VA, family and injured three others.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended that excess flow valves be installed in all new and renewed gas utility service lines, where feasible, as the result of an investigation of a gas explosion in a home that killed one member of a Loudoun County, VA family and injured three others.

New price movement was close to non-existent in almost the entire cash market Wednesday. Only a PG&E citygate uptick, a border-SoCalGas decline and mild Rockies softening provided variation in what was otherwise near-uniform flatness.