Very

Trading for the last week of the August swing market and for September bidweek got off to quiet starts Monday. Mild bullishness reigned in next-day numbers at most points, with quotes ranging from flat to just over a nickel higher. Tiny dips were recorded at a few western points.

Marketing and trading is central to a deregulated natural gas market, and it is gradually and very quietly being restored as producers and utilities hire traders to build their marketing departments. Traders who once worked for major marketers who were part of the “midstream meltdown are being dispersed into smaller shops,” said Edward M. Kelly, head of North American gas and power consulting for Wood Mackenzie.

It was not a very stellar week for Nymex natural gas bulls. After notching a new, three-month high and closing the previous week in fine form, natural gas futures entered last week poised to move higher. As it turns out, however, looks can be deceiving and the July contract was hit with a wave of negative price factors last week.

This week’s erosion of prices (not counting isolated pockets of firmness, mostly in the West) slowed to a crawl Thursday as further declines were limited to about 30 cents or less, and quite a few points (again, mostly in the West) registered moderate gains of up to about a quarter.

Despite forecasts that continue to call for above-normal weather into the second half of the month, natural gas futures prices held strong Monday, as fund buying lifted the market off early lows. At the closing bell the January contract finished at $4.359, down 2.4 cents for the session, but well above its low at $4.29.

In a very broad initial decision issued last Tuesday, a FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) shot down nearly all of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line’s arguments in support of rolled-in rates for several Southeast expansions of the pipeline’s system that were built in the late 1990s. Instead, he recommended incremental pricing of the projects, which requires only those customers who directly benefit from expansions to pay the costs.

In a very broad initial decision issued late Tuesday, a FERC administrative law judge (ALJ) shot down nearly all of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line’s arguments in support of rolled-in rates for several Southeast expansions of the pipeline’s system that were built in the late 1990s. Instead, he recommended incremental pricing of the projects, which requires only those customers who directly benefit from expansions to pay the costs.

As the U.S. Congress went into the night with what could be its final, and very lengthy, session for the year, there was still a chance the pipeline safety legislation, the only remaining piece of the once comprehensive energy bill, might squeak through attached to another measure. As of press time late Wednesday it was still a possibility.

Due to a scheduled pig run late last week resulting in “very high liquid levels” on the Matagorda Offshore Pipeline System, scheduled volumes from MOPS into interconnects with Florida Gas Transmission, Gulf South and Tejas Gas Pipeline remained at zero Monday until further notice (see Daily GPI, Nov. 11).