Spoken

“It’s the natural gas, stupid!” That is a refrain–spoken or implied–that ran throughout California’s ongoing electricity debates in both the legislature and among regulators as state officials scrambled last week to pave the way for bringing stability back to the state electricity industry.

“It’s the natural gas, stupid!” That is a refrain–spoken or implied–that ran throughout California’s ongoing electricity debates in both the legislature and among regulators as state officials scrambled Thursday to pave the way for bringing stability back to the state electricity industry.

June has ushered a familiar characteristic back into the naturalgas trading pit at Nymex: volatility. Natural gas and volatilityoften are spoken in the same breath. However, for periods thiswinter and spring, the dips and rallies that have drawn manytraders to natural gas have been largely suppressed. But now withsummer clsing in, June has been marked by choppy trading withweather bulls on one side and storage bears on the other. Analystsin the middle are mixed as to who will win the battle, but nearlyeveryone in the market agrees the “V” word is back to stay for awhile.