Unremarkable

Though somewhat unremarkable in that it featured a 151 Bcf withdrawal that was within market expectations, the weekly storage report released last Thursday by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) drew attention from industry analysts and data crunchers alike because it was a calendar anomaly — it was the 53rd weekly storage report for 2004.

An expiration-day nosedive by the February futures contract,chilly but unremarkable weather for this time of year (despitesnowfall and icing in some northern market areas), and the prospectof more small storage withdrawal reports in coming weeks kept bearsin command of the cash market Monday.

In what appeared to be an unremarkable decision, FERC this weekrejected a proposal that would have allowed Transwestern Pipelineto negotiate and share in the revenues that shippers would receivefor releasing capacity on its system. But the ruling piqued theinterest of some, especially shippers that were caught in acapacity squeeze when Dynegy Inc. contracted for much of thecapacity on El Paso Natural Gas.