Rise

Flush with profit from surging natural gas prices and a stockrise across the board this year of about 85%, North Americanindependents still appear to be in no rush to secure financing formore exploration and production activities. And unless you’ve gotequity or a strong balance sheet, lenders still may be wary beforejumping into any financing deals.

The sharp rise in natural gas and oil prices have sent Apache Corp.’s earnings skyrocketing, and the CEO said yesterday the Houston-based independent would easily beat Wall Street estimates. Analysts have predicted earnings per share of $4.86, but CEO Raymond Plank said the company expects to earn $5.50 per share, about 20% higher than predicted.

Nearly all prices continued to climb Tuesday but at a slowerpace than on the day before. Few points advanced more than a dime,San Juan Basin and the Southern California border were flat, andSumas prices into Northwest saw the rare decline of about a nickel.

Unprecedented growth of nearly 339% last year in the gas andsteam turbine market was fueled by the rise in combined cycleconfigurations, a manufacturing method that has dramaticallyincreased efficiency in electricity production and becomeincreasingly popular with power plant producers, according to a newresearch report by Frost & Sullivan.

With the conspicuous exception of San Juan Basin, pricescontinued to rise by about a dime or more at most points Thursday.While still firming, the market’s increases were smaller than thoseon Wednesday.

Unprecedented growth of nearly 339% last year in the gas andsteam turbine market was fueled by the rise in combined cycleconfigurations, a manufacturing method that has dramaticallyincreased efficiency in electricity production and becomeincreasingly popular with power plant producers, according to a newresearch report by Frost & Sullivan.

Despite the tense situation in the power industry and thenumerous power alerts so far this summer, a new study by J.D. Powerand Associates and Navigant Consulting found that electric utilitycustomer satisfaction actually has improved this year and theaverage length of the longest power outage declined. Nationwideabout 65% of residential customers reported that they are extremelyor very satisfied with their electric utility provider.

Despite the tense situation in the power industry and the numerous power alerts so far this summer, a new study by J.D. Power and Associates and Navigant Consulting found that electric utility customer satisfaction actually has improved this year and the average length of the longest power outage declined. Nationwide about 65% of residential customers reported that they are extremely or very satisfied with their electric utility provider.

Cash prices gave their best efforts Tuesday at imitating theprevious day’s screen rise of slightly over 35 cents, and quite afew points came close. But when the initially firmer July futurescontract made an abrupt about-face at mid-morning Tuesday andheaded south to eventually wind up the day more than a dime lower,cash numbers dutifully followed the screen’s lead once again inlate trading.