Term

Daniel Rappaport was elected to a fourth two-year term asNymex’s chairman, making him the longest currently sitting chairmanof any futures exchange in the world, , the exchange announcedWednesday. Rappaport was first elected to the position in 1993.Before his election, he served six years as a member of Nymex’sboard of directors. Rappaport has been a member of the exchangesince 1981.

Natural Gas futures rallied again yesterday as traders reactedto colder-than-expected temperatures throughout much of the Midwestand Southeast. And similar to advances made last week, Monday’sprice action was fast and furious with the February contractleading the way and gapping 6 cents above Thursday’s high. However,once the $2.085 high for the day was reached about 10:30 EST, theprompt month was left to move sideways within a narrow trading bandfor the rest of the session, notching a 12.6-cent increase tofinish at $2.071.

While in the longer term PacifiCorp’s merger partner has notruled out possible expansions into natural gas, water and eventelecommunications, ScottishPower PLC first plans to followPacifiCorp’s renewed focus on its vertically integrated electricitybusiness in the Western U.S. The $12.8 billion merger, includingdebt assumption, which was announced early last week, still mustpass U.S. state and federal regulators, along with Australianauthorities, however.

With San Juan Basin-Southern California border (bidweek) basisaveraging double what it was last year through November-36cents/MMBtu compared with 18 cents-and rising, Dynegy’s $70 milliondeal for 1.3 Bcf/d of El Paso Natural Gas’ firm pipeline capacityis looking better all the time for the company, Dynegy PresidentStephen Bergstrom said in an interview with NGI.

In a type of deal that is becoming increasingly popular amongmarketers selling to public entities, Aquila Energy has signed tosupply 91 Bcf over 12 years to municipal members of the NebraskaPublic Gas Agency for an advance payment of $162 million.

Parties have reached an agreement on terms for unravelinglong-term transportation arrangements that for years enabledSouthern California Gas to control its imports of Canadian gasthrough its paper pipeline affiliate, Pacific InterstateTransmission Co. (PITCO).