Seen

The sale of Ozark Gas Transmission to an Enogex affiliate hasbeen completed, but it remains to be seen whether the FERC willbless Enogex with the rates it seeks for an interstate pipelinecomposed of the combination of Ozark and its currentlynon-jurisdictional NOARK Pipeline.

The gas industry’s long and winding road from pipelineelectronic bulletin boards (EBBs) to the Internet is heading backto the Gas Industry Standards Board Executive Committee for furtherdebate. However, progress has been made as GISB has so far narrowedthe number of proposals for Internet transition from seven down totwo, with the GISB Executive Committee strongly in favor of one,known as Model 2 or CAMEL, the Consortium Advancing MutualElectronic Links. The Executive Committee (EC) previously voted outModel 2 and Model 1 to be sent to the board. Model 2 received 19votes from EC members, while Model 1 received only two votes. TheGISB board of directors decided rather than choose one or send bothproposals to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) itwould send them back to the EC in the hope one or a combination ofthe two could be decided upon.

Marketers were greeted last Thursday morning to something theyhadn’t seen all last week: unequivocally bearish indicators. Ahealthy storage injection, small futures retracement, and wiltingdemand ahead of a holiday weekend had sellers fast out of the chutelooking to unload their gas before the market cratered. This leftprices down anywhere from a couple of cents to almost a dime.However, one source said there was a certain “warm and fuzzy”feeling about trading this week and he looks for continued strengthMonday.

Prosper Business Development Corp. of Columbus, OH, formed adivision to assist energy companies in dealing with marketingchallenges of deregulation. Prosper NRG Marketing offers a varietyof turnkey products designed to enhance marketing efforts to thecommercial and residential segments of the energy market. Theproducts can be used to sell energy without a direct sales force.

Enough cold weather was either arriving or developing Tuesday inthe northern and western regions of the U.S. to arrest, at leasttemporarily, the mild price slide that had begun the week. For achange there was remarkable cross-market consistency in thatvirtually all points traded flat to up or down a couple of cents.