Ride

End-of-the-year assessments of California’s roller-coaster ride along energy restructuring point to a lack of consensus among the state’s leaders and industry stakeholders about what the state’s future framework for electricity in particular should look like. A report over the holiday week in the Los Angeles Times reported a split between the state’s top regulator and state legislator over who should take the next steps in shaping the state’s energy markets.

The next stop for some top Enron Corp. executives and the company’s auditor, Arthur Andersen LP, should be jail, said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), after listening last Tuesday to Enron employees, retirees and individual investors tell horror stories of fortunes lost.

The roller coaster ride of natural gas prices over the past year and a half is clear evidence of a market in need of federal repair, Apache Corp. said last week, adding that an Enron-Dynegy merger would exacerbate the existing market malfunction.

Natural gas prices remained on a roller coaster ride of volatility yesterday as bull traders used the latest storage data as a battering ram to propel prices higher in the last 30 minutes of trading. The December contract received the biggest buying boost, posting a 10.8-cent gain at $3.291. The 12-month strip lagged only slightly, advancing 8.4 cents to close at $3.383.

With natural gas price spikes finally seeming to ease after asix-month-long roller coaster ride, U.S. electricity generatorshave taken the experience as a warning, but vow to stick withnatural gas as their go-to plant-firing source.

With natural gas price spikes finally seeming to ease after asix-month-long roller coaster ride, U.S. electricity generatorshave taken the experience as a warning, but vow to stick withnatural gas as their go-to plant-firing source.

In what has to be a wilder ride than anything available atDisneyland’s soon-to-open new “California Experience,” theelectricity high jinx caromed all over the nation’s most populousstate last week. It included: rolling blackouts through northernCalifornia; enactment of crisis legislation, the most immediate ofwhich provides $400 million to the state water resources agency soit can buy bulk power for California; a last minute temporaryrestraining order by the California Public Utilities Commissionrequiring Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edisonto continue supplying power to all their customers; variousfinancial downgradings and defaults; and suggestions for compromiseactions by outgoing FERC Chairman James Hoecker.

Natural gas prices continued their roller coaster ride last weekwith changes in near- and long-term weather forecasts, and acolder-than-normal winter season which could lead to physicalshortages, according to Salomon Smith Barney’s weekly E&Pforecast. However, even though E&P shares declined 7% onaverage last week, there’s still plenty of gains to be had thisyear by both large and small players.

They may have to start handing out seat belts at Nymex justprior to the release of American Gas Association’s weekly gasstorage report each Wednesday. In a span of only a few minutesfollowing the 2 p.m. report of a 65 Bcf injection last week intostorage, September futures spiked to $4.565, its highest levelsince June 28, but then immediately plummeted back into the low$4.40s.