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Conservative exploration and development strategies andacquisitions, coupled with a growing demand for energy, enabled theworld’s largest oil and gas companies to reduce reserve replacementcosts 14% from a year ago, and dramatically increase net profits— by as much as 900%, according to an analysis by energyresearch firm John S. Herold Inc.

NiSource Inc.’s Market Hub Partners Storage L.P. (MHP) saw itsnet income rise 13% to $2.6 million for the first quarter of thisyear, up from $2.3 for the first quarter of 1999. Revenues rose to$8.2 million, up from $8 million last year at the Houstonsubsidiary, mostly because of expanded working gas storage capacityat its Moss Bluff, TX and Egan, LA natural gas storage facilities.

NiSource Inc.’s Market Hub Partners Storage L.P. (MHP) saw itsnet income rise 13% to $2.6 million for the first quarter of thisyear, up from $2.3 for the first quarter of 1999. Revenues rose to$8.2 million, up from $8 million last year at the Houstonsubsidiary, mostly because of expanded working gas storage capacityat its Moss Bluff, TX and Egan, LA natural gas storage facilities.

FERC approval of a settlement ending a two-year complex contractdispute between Phelps Dodge Corp. and El Paso Natural Gas is themost “recent success story” of the use of alternative disputeresolution (ADR) methods at the Commission.

FERC approval of a settlement ending a two-year complex contractdispute between Phelps Dodge Corp. and El Paso Natural Gas is themost “recent success story” of the use of alternative disputeresolution (ADR) methods at the Commission.

As FERC last week was delivering bad news to the Northeast-boundIndependence Pipeline and associated SupplyLink and MarketLinkprojects, the Commission staff was delivering a report to CapitolHill that concluded new pipeline capacity may be needed for theregion within the next three to five years. It didn’t specify howmuch capacity though (See related story).

Natural gas futures took a Wylie Coyote-like free-fall yesterdayafter a bearish conspiracy of weather and technicals gave traderslittle choice but to liquidate long positions. After notching a newtwo-month high Wednesday afternoon, the December contract openedlower at $3.18 and never looked back, plummeting 25.8 cents tofinish at $2.965. January fared little better, tumbling 23.6 centsto $2.994.

Led by what one New York local trader called “massive shortcovering,” the futures market erupted 27.1 cents higher yesterdayin a rally that left many market participants incredulous. Comingon the heels of fresh storage data and subsequent gains in Accesstrading Wednesday, the October contract gapped higher at the openyesterday and never looked back, finishing at $2.697.

Adding to the price erosion that began last Tuesday, natural gasfutures tumbled lower at the New York Mercantile Exchange Monday asunsupportive cash market values met with heavy local selling.However, when a second wave of selling failed to materialize,speculative traders were forced to cover shorts into the closeyesterday, sources said. The August contract finished at $2.144,down 1.9 cents on the day.