Routine

What appeared to be a routine stay request by a neighborhood group in Pennsylvania of orders approving a Tennessee Pipeline expansion evoked an unusual debate among FERC commissioners last week over their responsibility to address pipeline safety issues.

El Paso Natural Gas has decided to postpone what it called”routine” maintenance projects on its system in order to maintainthe flow of natural gas into the California market to meet thesurge in demand there. The higher demand has been created by ashortfall in energy imports from the Northwest region, which hasbeen gripped by cold weather.

Routine drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwaterpose little threat to the environment or human health, and, infact, play a significant role in the socioeconomic status of itsport communities. That’s the conclusion of a new report by theMinerals and Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department ofInterior, which published its conclusions for a projected 10-yearperiod on deepwater operations between 1998-2007.

Routine drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwaterpose little threat to the environment or human health, and, infact, play a significant role in the socioeconomic status of itsport communities. That’s the conclusion of a new report by theMinerals and Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department ofInterior, which published its conclusions for a projected 10-yearperiod on deepwater operations between 1998-2007.

In what has become almost a routine, natural gas futures coastedto another sizeable gain Friday as traders bid up the June contractin an expiration-day buying frenzy. With no fresh news in which tosink their teeth, traders were content to chew on concerns thatstorage is growing at too slow a pace to match predicted demandlevels, both this summer and next winter as reasons for the rally.Becoming the first contract to post a final settlement above $4.00,the June contract notched an impressive 17-cent gain to settle at$4.406 after peaking at $4.50 during a volatile final 30 minutes oftrading.

A break in the flat price pattern that has dominated the overallcash market during February came Tuesday, and appropriately it wasto the downside, where many sources had long expected prices to beheaded because of mild weather, a softening screen and a massivestorage surplus for this late in the winter season.

In what has become almost routine lately, the AGA’s report ofstrong injections into storage caused a wave of follow-throughselling Thursday. A lower open allowed the contract to slip beneathsupport to settle at $2.02. In doing so, the July contract fell anadditional 8.6 cents to settle at the contract’s lowest point since1997.