Storm

There’s no denying that El Paso Natural Gas has a bad habit ofattracting controversy, but its latest move seems a bit moremasochistic than usual.

After all the winter storm excitement in recent weeks, themarket appeared to be growing calmer Wednesday yet still managed tokeep pushing prices higher. Most of the upticks were between anickel and a little over a dime, with the Northeast remaining thebastion of dollar-plus increases.

A winter storm sweeping through the South, along with freezingtemperatures expected to last through the weekend in much of theU.S. from the Rockies eastward, resulted in rising prices at nearlyall points Friday.

Fueled by the East’s worst winter storm in four years, naturalgas futures erupted higher at the open yesterday as tradersestablished new longs with confidence.

Friday represented the eye of the storm for Georgia’s gas industry,as Atlanta Gas Light (AGL), the state’s largest distributor, andPeachtree Natural Gas, the bankrupt supplier to 177,000 gas customers,brokered an interim solution to their problems at a federal bankruptcycourt hearing. The hearing was a result of an earlier AGL filing withthe court, seeking to distribute Peachtree’s customers to other, “morecreditworthy” suppliers (see Daily GPI, Oct29).

Friday represented the eye of the storm for Georgia’s gasindustry, as Atlanta Gas Light (AGL), the state’s largestdistributor, and Peachtree Natural Gas, the bankrupt supplier to177,000 gas customers, brokered an interim solution to theirproblems at a federal bankruptcy court hearing. The hearing was aresult of an earlier AGL filing with the bankruptcy court, seekingto distribute Peachtree’s customers to other, “more creditworthy”suppliers.

After opening just below Tuesday’s close, the May futurescontract chopped lazily sideways yesterday before eking out a smallgain before the close. In fact, yesterday’s price action was sosubdued it was hard for some traders to believe it was expirationday at the New York Mercantile Exchange. The May contract completedits tenure as prompt month, expiring at $2.348, up 1.7 cents forthe day.

A chart gap, created when the one day’s high price is lower thanthe low price of a consecutive trading day is an eye sore to chartwatchers-they don’t like them and they will almost always try tofill them in by trading the market back between the “gap.” So itcame as no surprise when the first order of Friday’s trading wasfor the market to check lower in an attempt to fill in the 2-centgap left between Wednesday’s high of $2.18 and Thursday’s low of$2.20. It never made it. In fact, sellers could barely dent it andmanaged only a $2.195 low, before late buying lifted the promptmonth to just above unchanged Friday afternoon. May finished theweek at $2.226, a 0.1-cent gain for the day.

Tired of watching Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) have all thefun, Williams-Transco announced its plans to construct anunderwater pipeline and storm the rich Florida market from thecoast. Named the Buccaneer Pipeline (possibly after Tampa Bay’sfootball team), its first open season will be held shortly afterJan. 1, Williams said today.