Seems

It could be argued everyone is a stakeholder in electricrestructuring, and yesterday it seems just about everyone gottogether and weighed in at Congress with the issue. A broad-basedgroup of organizations has developed a list of 23 principles itbelieves should be considered in any federal restructuringlegislation.

Socrates did not say “an unexamined energy industry is not worthrunning.” But he might as well have. As long as there is gas andoil in the ground, it seems, there will be those willing to poreover statistics and share their findings.

It seems like a safe bet that early this week nobody could havepredicted big price increases anytime in the near future. Themarket’s bearish feeling at the time was palpable. But in somethingclose to a mirror image reversal of Tuesday’s big declines, tradersused an awesome display of might by futures to send cash priceshigher by a dime or more across the board Wednesday.

The recent running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, seems prettytame compared to the stampede developing in the gas market. It wasa more hectic Nymex closing day than usual Wednesday as a mildincrease in the last day of trading August futures was accompaniedby what one source called a “pitiful” little AGA storage injectionreport, Michigan electric utilities appealing a day in advance forenergy conservation, a skyrocketing Access session and higher Julyswing numbers. All in all, it added up to an extremely strongmarket that “there doesn’t seem to be any way of stopping,” a Texasmarketer said.

Everyone seems to be “joining the slow club,” one sourceremarked Wednesday as the last day of June futures trading onlynudged June baseload and the day-trading markets slightly higherfrom the holding patterns established Tuesday. Today will be muchmore active, he said, because the Nymex closes early Friday due toMemorial Day, and time is running out to get deals done.

Like a grizzly bear accidentally stepping on a porcupine, VikingVoyageur seems to have tread on a Wisconsin landowner whose husbandhappens to be a Noble Prize winning economist with a dislike ofpipeline infrastructure. In testimony filed at FERC on behalf ofhis wife Katherine D. Miller, Merton H. Miller, McCormickDistinguished Service Professor of Finance, Emeritus, of theGraduate School of Business, University of Chicago, warned theCommission if its goal in approving new pipelines is to benefitconsumers then it should toss the Voyageur project.

The March Nymex contract turned in another heavily tradedsession on Tuesday, but once again, volatility was virtuallynon-existent. Although the spot month managed a 3.7 cent gain to$2.216, the contract was held to a relatively tight 5.5 centtrading band. Not even the expiration of options yesterday couldpersuade traders to push March out of its recent rigid tradinglimits.