Tumultuous

Capping another tumultuous trading week, the natural gas futures market tumbled lower on New Year’s Eve in selling surges both before and after the release of bearish storage data featuring a paltry 80 Bcf net withdrawal. Within minutes of the report’s release, the February contract dropped to $6.05 — 90 cents off the spike high carved out less than 24 hours earlier.

Capping a tumultuous week of trading, the natural gas futures market rose Friday as a wave of weather-related short-covering boosted prices throughout the morning. Only modest softening was seen in light afternoon trading, leaving the November contract to close at $4.767, up 8.1 cents on the day.

The tumultuous energy market just terminated its latest chief executive. After announcing sweeping changes to its strategic plan last week, including selling another $2.9 billion in assets and cutting its dividend 82%, El Paso Corp. said Tuesday morning that CEO William Wise will be stepping down at the end of the year.

Capping a tumultuous tenure as prompt month, the October contract went out with bang Thursday as two distinct waves of buying were more than sellers could handle. After ratcheting higher throughout the late morning following the news that 67 Bcf worth of gas was injected into storage last week, the prompt month dove lower in the afternoon. But just when it looked as if October would drop below the critical $3.50 mark, market-on-close buyers stepped in. That support, combined with an absence of willing sellers, sent prices through the roof in the last 30 minutes of trading. October settled at $3.686, up 19.2 cents for the session and 26.6 cents above where it was when it took over as prompt contract at Nymex a month ago.

In an effort to strengthen its liquidity in these tumultuous times for the energy industry, Calpine Corp. said late last week that it has entered into an agreement to sell certain non-strategic Canadian oil and gas properties for $81 million (C$125 million). In addition, the San Jose, CA-based company secured $106 million in non-recourse project financing to give it the leverage to complete construction of its 300 MW Blue Spruce Energy Center in Aurora, CO, east of Denver.

In an effort to strengthen its liquidity in these tumultuous times for the energy industry, San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. said Thursday that it has entered into an agreement to sell certain non-strategic oil and gas properties for $81 million (C$125 million). Calpine inked the deal with NAL Resources on behalf of NAL Oil & Gas Trust and another institutional investor.

This year has been nothing less than tumultuous for TransCanadaPipelines, which already has sold $1 billion in assets and cut 600jobs. But the Canadian pipeline giant apparently is just gettingstarted. It announced plans yesterday to unload another 15% of itsholdings for expected net proceeds of about $3 billion. The movewill mean the departure of about one-third of its workforce by theend of next year.

After a tumultuous morning rally and retreat, natural gas pickedits way higher yesterday as traders looked past a mixed technicalpicture to focus instead on the possible reemergence of seasonaltemperatures by week’s end. The April contract advanced 2.5 centsto $2.85. However, the real stories were in the out months, whichgalloped higher to post gains of 3.4 cents and 3.5 cents for thesummer and 12-month strips respectively.

Fresh from a gargantuan six-day, 72-cent price retreat, thenatural gas futures market regained its composure Friday, asscale-down buyers took advantage of lower prices, and new shortscovered positions into the holiday weekend. The October contractclosed up 9 cents at $2.561 in an abbreviated pre-holiday session.