Setting

Under heavy pressure from near record-setting high temperatures,the natural gas market caved in yesterday as traders continued toliquidate long positions. After opening at $2.80 the Decembercontract was hit with a Microsoft-like drop, breaking through keysupport levels at $2.74 and $2.70, to finish off 21.9 cents at$2.665.

BP Amoco is starting a quiet, behind-the-scenes campaign aimedat bringing pipeline rate-setting out of the realm of the archaic,making it current and market-responsive by building in annualre-calculations to adjust return on equity.

BP Amoco is starting a quiet, behind-the-scenes campaign aimedat bringing pipeline rate-setting out of the realm of the archaic,making it current and market-responsive by building in annualre-calculations to adjust return on equity.

Setting itself up to enter the deregulating European energymarket, Altra Energy Technologies Inc. announced that Sema Group,an international information technology (IT) and business servicescompany, has agreed to be Altra’s exclusive European distributor.

Follow-through on last week’s gains and record-settingtemperatures put bulls squarely in control Monday in the Nymex gaspit. Locals and commercials were good buyers in the first hour oftrading yesterday as they buoyed the market to its highest level insix months. However, after the initial surge the market could notattract fresh buying and was left to chop sideways amid arelatively light 59,236 in estimated volume. The July contractfinished at $2.442, up 0.5 cents for the day.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission finalized rules forfull customer choice, setting the procedure for all of the state’s5.2 million electric customers to choose suppliers.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission finalized rules forfull customer choice, setting the procedure by which all of thestate’s 5.2 million electric customers can choose suppliers.

Conoco yesterday held its first meeting of stockholders in 18years following the company’s record-setting $4.4 billion initialpublic offering in October 1998, that launched Conoco’s eventualseparation from DuPont. Conoco CEO Archie Dunham said the finalsplit-off from DuPont is expected to occur in the third quarter ofthis year when DuPont will offer its shareholders the opportunityto exchange DuPont shares for Conoco shares.

California regulators have taken a potentially precedent-settingstep by asking FERC to condition a certificate for Questar’sproposed Southern Trails Pipeline on the company first agreeing torecover from its in-state customers the costs of social programsthat would be potentially stranded by its bypass of SouthernCalifornia Gas (SoCalGas).