Tighten

Severe winter-like conditions continued to tighten their icy grip Wednesday, but only San Juan/Rockies points were still experiencing rising prices. Perhaps in anticipation of an approaching easing of the harsh weather blanketing Canada and most of the U.S. from the Rockies eastward, most of the cash market fell between about a nickel and 20 cents. Some Northeast citygates saw losses approaching half a dollar, while others rose a dollar or more.

“The U.S. has entered into an era of higher price volatility in the energy markets” as supplies tighten, Anadarko CEO John Seitz said in a keynote speech at the Howard Weil Energy Conference last Monday. “The intensity is increasing, and the cycles are getting shorter.”

As capital markets dry up and the go-go merchant power plant operator-developers attempt to tighten their balance sheets, opportunity knocks for a small handful of large energy concerns to expand their asset base of merchant electric generating plants at below-value purchase prices, according to one Wall Street utility analyst who is bullish on the big, established energy companies.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to mark up “broad” legislation this week to tighten the security of the nation’s major energy infrastructure facilities, and then resume mark-up of a comprehensive energy bill by the middle of the month.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is scheduled to mark up “broad” legislation next week to tighten the security of the nation’s major energy infrastructure facilities, and then resume mark-up of a comprehensive energy bill by the middle of the month.

Amid warnings that natural gas supplies are poised to tighten upin the United States, Canadian exporters are lining up to fill anygap. As Joe Foster, chairman of the U.S. National PetroleumCouncil, voiced concerns over the future of American supplies,ProGas Ltd. filed the first application to Canada’s National EnergyBoard for a long-term license for exports via Alliance PipelineProject as soon as it is completed in October of 2000.

Amid warnings that natural gas supplies are poised to tighten upin the United States, Canadian exporters are lining up to fill anygap. As Joe Foster, chairman of the U.S. National PetroleumCouncil, voiced concerns over the future of American supplies,ProGas Ltd. filed the first application to Canada’s National EnergyBoard for a long-term license for exports via Alliance PipelineProject as soon as it is completed in October of 2000.

Four factors will continue to tighten the future domestic gassupply picture, Randy Mundt, executive vice president of marketingfor producer Burlington Resources, said Tuesday at Ziff EnergyGroups’ New Gas Dynamics 2000+ conference in Houston. The twobiggest factors are producers’ difficulty in replacing productionand accelerated decline rates in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, Mundtsaid, Canadian imports are not an immediate threat to domesticproducers, and the current supply-demand scenario is roughly inbalance.