South

Monday’s cash trading found support from record hightemperatures in the South and El Paso’s Blanco compressor stationoutage but were kept in check by softening futures prices. Mostspot market points managed modest gains of about 3-5 cents.Southwestern and Rockies points, however, logged gains of nearly adime.

Pricing was “pretty much the same as it was yesterday,” said aSouth Texas producer Friday reporting flat numbers in the low$2.10s. Most points traded flat to 2-3 cents up or down, with a tadmore downside than upside. Several sources agreed it was a quietand essentially featureless market. A big aggregator called it”mostly a dead day; there seemed to be a lot of people out of theoffice.”

American Electric Power Co. Inc. (AEP) and Central and SouthWest Corp. (CSW) last week sought FERC approval of the merger oftheir operations into one of the largest electric utility companiesin the nation.

TECO Energy gas utility Peoples Gas System, Florida’s largestretail gas distributor, announced plans to expand distributionservice to southwest Florida. Customers in the Lee County area,including Fort Myers and Cape Coral as well as Naples andsurrounding communities, will be able to buy natural gas for thefirst time.

NIPSCO announced 3,281 out of 50,000 eligible residentialcustomers in the South Bend-Mishawaka-Granger area and 920 out of1,500 eligible commercial and small industrial buyers in thenorthern third of the state of Indiana will begin receiving gasfrom alternative suppliers for the first time starting in April.