Sell

Modest gains were seen in the natural gas pit yesterday after alocal-led sell-off was stymied by scale-down trade buying. Asidefrom cash prices moving a couple pennies higher, the fundamentalpicture remained overwhelmingly bearish, prompting traders to blametechnical factors for Thursday’s strength. The February contracttraded up 2.8 cents to $2.196 and March bounced 3.6 cents to$2.237. Equally as impressive was the 12-month strip, which gained2.6 cents to $2.391

Denver-based TransMontaigne Inc. agreed to sell gas gatheringsubsidiary Bear Paw Energy Inc. to a group formed by Bear Pawmanagement along with two other partners for $107.5 million in cashand reimbursement of costs for a Powder River gathering system.

Denver-based Western Gas Resources Inc. made a purchase and saleagreement with EXCO Resources Inc. to sell its 69% interest in theBlack Lake Unit, including the Black Lake processing and treatingfacilities in Louisiana. The sales price of $7.8 million is subjectto adjustment. Western expects to realize a pre-tax loss of about$6.5 million this quarter. This deal is expected to close by Jan.7.

Kinder Morgan Inc. agreed to sell the capital stock of MidCon Gas Products of New Mexico Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary, to GPM Gas Corp., a unit of Phillips Petroleum, for $20 million in cash. Closing is expected by year-end. MidCon Gas Products owns the Big Eddy and Logans Draw gathering systems in Eddy County, NM. The combined systems include 159 miles of four- to ten-inch pipe with average throughput of 50 MMcf/d. Richard D. Kinder, CEO, said the sale is part of Houston-based Kinder Morgan’s back to basics strategy to divest of non-core assets. Sale proceeds will reduce debt.

Dynegy Inc. announced yesterday definitive agreements to sellcertain east Texas natural gas gathering, treating and processingfacilities, owned and operated by its wholly owned subsidiary,Dynegy Midstream Services LP, to an independent midstreamprocessing company. The closing of the sale is expected to occurprior to year-end. Neither the identity of the buyer nor the saleprice was disclosed.

DPL Inc. of Dayton, OH, agreed to sell its retail gasdistribution business to Indiana Energy Inc. of Indianapolis, ID,for $425 million in an all-cash sale to be accounted for as apurchase.

Fueled by a late sell-off, natural gas futures continued lowerlast Wednesday and put the finishing touches on a December futurescontract which slipped a whopping $1.06 or one-third of its valuesince becoming the spot contract a month ago. With no fresh news todigest, the market defaulted to the same old negative price outlookformed around above-normal temperatures and plentiful gas supplies.After hitting a black hole of buying below $2.21 shortly after noonWednesday, the December contract free-fell 6.9-cents to expire at$2.12 in abbreviated pre-holiday trading.

GPU Inc., parent of New Jersey’s largest electric utility, GPU Energy, unveiled a multi-point program designed to enhance shareholder returns at the Edison Electric Institute Finance Conference in Orlando, FL, last week. The plan includes a $100 million cost reduction over the next two years, a $40-$50 million investment to improve the company’s reliability and a non-core asset sale designed to generate over $500 million.

GPU Inc., parent of New Jersey’s largest electric utility, GPUEnergy, unveiled a multi-point program designed to enhanceshareholder returns at the Edison Electric Institute FinanceConference in Orlando, FL, yesterday. The plan includes a $100million cost reduction over the next two years, a $40-$50 millioninvestment to improve the company’s reliability and a non-coreasset sale designed to generate over $500 million.