Stand

Prices continued to ride the crest of somewhat premature winter weather and strong futures to new gains Wednesday, but just barely in most cases. Rockies numbers increased by about 20-40 cents and Northeast citygates rose by 5-15 cents, but otherwise nearly all points ranged from flat to only about a nickel higher.

After carving out an 8.5-cent trading range during the first 50 minutes of trading Tuesday, natural gas futures settled down and chopped lazily sideways for the remainder of the session. The October contract finished at $3.356, down 4.3 cents for the day and just above its $3.34 low. At just 72,545, estimated volume was indicative of a market that is uncertain what forces will impact the natural gas futures market on Sept. 11.

American legislators stand warned again that they will do no favors for the proposed Alaskan natural gas pipeline if they persist in trying to nail down a route chosen by what it does for political constituencies.

Although this week’s winter siege likely was reaching its maximum area of penetration Wednesday, for the most part it had lost much of its price-boosting power. Except for big advances by Florida citygates and some citygates in the Northeast, the rest of the cash market had settled down for a generally flat performance, with scattered points showing 1 to 5 cent increases.

Producers and consumers alike stand to gain if Quebec and Ontario secure access to natural gas from the new production fields offshore of Nova Scotia that have to date been tapped almost entirely for exports to the northeastern United States, according to Gaz Metropolitain of Montreal and Enbridge Inc., owner of Toronto distributor Enbridge Consumers’ Gas. The two companies are proposing to build a new pipeline, the Cartier project, that would connect markets in Quebec City with a new lateral off of the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline in New Brunswick.

A federal judge in Washington, DC, has ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton to face a civil contempt trial for failure to comply with court orders to clean up the alleged mismanagement of royalty monies held and overseen by the agency in the Indian Trust Fund.

A federal judge has ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton to face a civil contempt trial next week for failure to comply with court orders to clean up the alleged mismanagement of royalty monies held and overseen by the agency in the Indian Trust Fund.

After 26 years of service, Energy West CEO and president Larry Geske announced he would not stand for re-election to the Great Falls, MT-based company’s board of directors and will retire in November. Geske said he plans to focus his time on personal and community projects. Edward Bernica, COO and CFO, has been appointed president and CEO effective immediately. Bernica has been CFO for five years and COO for two years. During Geske’s tenure, Energy West grew from a utility serving Great Falls to a company now serving customers throughout the inter-mountain west with natural gas, propane and electricity.

Creating a stand-alone transmission company is easier said than done, and companies mulling such a move, should be prepared to face a slew of impediments and surprises along the way, according to several executives who appeared last week at the Energy Bar Association’s 55th annual meeting in Washington, D.C.