Third

Maybe the third time will be a charm for El Paso Natural Gas.After two failed open seasons — one of which ended this week —the pipeline still is left holding the greater part of the 1.35BBtu/d of soon-to-be-available firm capacity on its system. El Pasonow hopes to do a negotiated arrangement for the California-boundcapacity-similar to the one it worked out with Dynegy Marketing andTrade two years ago.

Florida Gas Transmission extended an Overage Alert Day noticeinto its third day Wednesday, continuing to cite high market-areademand. However, Pacific Gas & Electric is lifting itslow-linepack OFO today.

Williams share prices dipped nearly 5% to $40.88/share yesterdayfollowing an announcement that the company expects third quarterearnings per share to be “substantially below” current Wall Streetestimates of 20 cents/share. The company said a change inaccounting standards and cooler than normal temperatures inSouthern California, its major power sales area, were to blame. Theannouncement was made partly in preparation for WilliamsCommunications’ initial public offering next month.

Altra Energy Technologies said it set new records for physicallydelivered natural gas and natural gas swaps for the thirdconsecutive month in a row on Aug. 31. On that day, 146 Bcf ofdelivered gas and 135 Bcf of swaps were traded. The previous highwas 132 Bcf for natural gas and 133 Bcf for swaps. David Hanson,Altra’s vice president of gas marketing said greater liquidity andefficiency in the system played a part in increasing transactionintensity.

Development is accelerating on Canada’s newest gas frontier as athird production project steps forward to tap discoveries in thesouthern Northwest Territories.

Development is accelerating on Canada’s newest natural gasfrontier, as a third production project steps forward to tapdiscoveries in the southern Northwest Territories.

For the third morning in a row natural gas futures gapped higherat the open before continuing upward as traders covered shortpositions in anticipation of Tropical Storm Bret becoming the firsthurricane in the 1999 Atlantic season. But after notching a $3.015high shortly after noon, the September contract was hit with a waveof profit-taking that delivered the spot month back down to settleat $2.938. Estimated volume was healthy, with 99,927 contractschanging hands.

While for a third consecutive year U.S. gas reserves stood flatat around 107 Tcf, Canadian reserves grew 8% to 32.2 Tcf in 1998,according to Arthur Andersen. That’s just one finding of theconsultant’s 1999 edition of Global E&P Trends, released lastweek.

While for a third consecutive year U.S. gas reserves stood flatat around 107 Tcf, Canadian reserves grew 8% to 32.2 Tcf in 1998,according to Arthur Andersen. That’s just one finding of theconsultant’s 1999 edition of Global E&P Trends, releasedyesterday.