Tries

State regulators and consumer advocates expressed deep concernover gas prices yesterday at the winter committee meetings of theNational Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners inWashington, D.C. But industry officials expressed guarded optimismabout supply and pointed to recent price decreases and drillingefforts as evidence the situation is improving.

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) yesterday defended President Bush’senergy policy strategy against criticism that it’s fixated ondrilling in the Alaska artic while giving short shrift to thenation’s more pressing energy concerns.

While gas prices remain extremely high, R. Skip Horvath,president of the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA), last weekurged state regulators to be patient until the record number of gasrigs operating can do their work and provide desperately neededsupply increases.

While gas prices remain camped out at record levels, R. SkipHorvath, president of the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA),urged state regulators yesterday to be patient until the recordnumber of gas rigs operating can do their work and providedesperately needed supply increases.

In the latest of a yearlong effort to put the brakes to anunwelcome MarketLink project, the state of New Jersey and thestate’s Department of Law and Public Safety called on FERC lastweek to rescind and vacate the certificate approving constructionof the controversial pipeline expansion through the northern partof the state, and to treat sponsor Transcontinental Gas Pipe LineCorp.’s recent request to amend the project as a new application.

The state of New Jersey and the state’s Department of Law andPublic Safety called on FERC this week to rescind and vacate thecertificate approving construction of the controversial MarketLinkpipeline expansion through the state, and to treat sponsorTranscontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp.’s recent request to amend theproject as a new application.

New York Board of Trade reached an agreement last week to “makewhole” all floor operators whose funds were used to meet marginobligations of Klein and Co. Futures Inc. NYBOT said it will payback the innocent traders and customers of Klein. NYBOT’s decisioncame not long after the New York Mercantile Exchange and 15 of itsmembers filed a class action complaint against NYBOT, New YorkClearing Corp. (NYCC) and Klein, alleging that NYBOT improperlyused funds of Klein customers who also traded Nymex energy, oil andmetals contracts to satisfy obligations of an unrelated Kleincustomer on the New York Futures Exchange, a unit of NYBOT.

Shippers on the Northern Natural Gas system called on FERC toreject the pipeline’s latest tariff proposal because they say ittries to pass off index-based rates as “discounted” rates ratherthan negotiated rates.

How quickly the market can change! Just two days after finishinga bidweek that saw indexes climb 30 cents or more, traders tookcash prices down Thursday to levels looking much more like Augustindexes than those of September. It was a rare point that managedto avoid a double-digit decline, and some registered drops of 20cents or more.