Seeing

Natural gas customers in Indiana may be seeing a 5% reduction intheir heating bills this winter, courtesy of a proposed taxexemption by Gov. Frank O’Bannon. O’Bannon said last week that hemay suspend the state sales tax of o5% on natural gas, similar to aban he enacted on gasoline sales in June.

Natural gas customers in Indiana may be seeing a 5% reduction intheir heating bills this winter, courtesy of a proposed taxexemption by Gov. Frank O’Bannon. O’Bannon said last week that hemay suspend the state sales tax similar to a ban he enacted ongasoline sales in June.

Major natural gas producers are seeing red flags everywhere inthe wake of Petal Gas Storage L.L.C’s decision to scrap itsoriginal proposal to build three new pipeline interconnects to itsstorage facilities in Mississippi. They contend the proposal hasbeen amended to benefit Petal’s new-found affiliates at the expenseof non-affiliated customers.

Although producers are seeing a significant rebound from themarket doldrums over the past couple years, Fitch IBCA sees troubleahead in the form of increasing finding and development costs andsignificant opposition to pipeline construction.

“This gas market is stuck in neutral gear,” lamented a westerntrader Monday. “We’re seeing about the same prices as on Friday, soyou could almost ‘cut and paste’ those notes into today’s report.”Sure enough, except for a moderate spike at Transco Zone 6-NYC thatwas retreating in late action, Monday’s quotes maintained thepredominantly flat market that has prevailed since last Tuesday.

There were very few places outside the extreme southwesterncorner of the U.S. still seeing high temperatures any greater than70 degrees Tuesday, and the growing chill was manifested in furthergas price increases. Though milder than Monday’s gains and almostnon-existent in California and parts of the Rockies, the new pricehikes were generally on either side of a dime in the Gulf Coast,Midcontinent/Midwest and Northeast. Much like the day before,Northeast citygates tended to rise the most between 10 and 14cents.

Fourteen consecutive months of declining drilling rigutilization came to an end in July, according to Global Marine’smost recent SCORE report, or Summary of Current Offshore RigEconomics. And the Gulf of Mexico appears to be leading theturnaround.

Fourteen consecutive months of declining drilling rigutilization came to an end in July, according to Global Marine’smost recent SCORE report, or Summary of Current Offshore RigEconomics. And the Gulf of Mexico appears to be leading theturnaround.

Eastern markets emerged from the weekend without seeing anyrebound from Friday’s slump. Prices continued to decline by mostlysmall amounts, with various points ranging from flat to just over anickel lower. A small futures drop contributed to the cashbearishness, traders said, but more than anything else it was arelative dearth of air conditioning load that sent prices down.