Sharp

Bulls staged a surprising 9.4% rally in March futures to a high on Friday of $2.21 from Wednesday’s low of $2.02. March ended Friday up 4.1 cents to $2.191, slightly off its daily high and 2.6 cents from its $2.165 low, leaving many observers on the edges of their seats wondering if the large number of speculative shorts would reconsider their exposure and propel the market into the $2.20s and possibly $2.30s.

Financial accounting worries and a wave of bad news from several energy companies added to the negative pressure in the larger stock market early Wednesday before investor sentiment took a turn for the better in the late afternoon.

Natural-gas shippers face extra costs of C$275 million (US$172 million) per year as a result of proposals by TransCanada PipeLines, according to calculations by an irate Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. In written preliminaries for hearings before the National Energy Board that promise to be long and hot after they start Feb. 19, CAPP calls TransCanada’s financial requests “grossly excessive.” Other protesters, while more diplomatic, are also firm — including Mirant Canada Energy Marketing Ltd.

Natural gas shippers face extra costs of C$275 million (US$172 million) per year as a result of proposals by TransCanada PipeLines, according to calculations by an irate Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. In written preliminaries for hearings before the National Energy Board that promise to be long and hot after they start Feb. 19, CAPP calls TransCanada’s financial requests “grossly excessive.” Other protesters, while more diplomatic, are also firm — including Mirant Canada Energy Marketing Ltd.

Despite the sharp downturn in domestic gas-directed drilling rates since July, there will probably not be enough of a reduction in natural gas productive capacity to prevent relatively low prices this winter and through most of 2002, but reduced drilling could have important implications for market prices by 2003, according to the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook –January released last week.

Despite the sharp downturn in domestic gas-directed drilling rates since July, there will probably not be enough of a reduction in natural gas productive capacity to prevent relatively low prices this winter and through most of 2002, but reduced drilling could have important implications for market prices by 2003, according to the EIA’s Short-Term Energy Outlook –January released on Tuesday.

A sharp decline in shallow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and declining rig dayrates led to a 3.1% drop in Global Marine’s worldwide SCORE report, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for October 2001 from the September SCORE. The SCORE for the Gulf of Mexico plummeted 16% and is down 13.7% from last October and 33.2% from the five-year average

A sharp decline in shallow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and declining rig dayrates led to a 3.1% drop in Global Marine’s worldwide SCORE report, or Summary of Current Offshore Rig Economics, for October 2001 from the September SCORE. The SCORE for the Gulf of Mexico plummeted 16% and is down 13.7% from last October and 33.2% from the five-year average

The sharp downturn in the economy since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks caused a significant reassessment of quarterly and annual earnings expectations among energy companies last week. AES had the worst news with expectations of dramatically lower earnings because of its currency exposure in Brazil, changes in the power market in the United Kingdom and events affecting some of its domestic operations. Exelon also will suffer and will reduce its work force by another 450 jobs. Meanwhile, Duke Energy, PPL, NRG and Entergy all reaffirmed their earnings expectations.