Weak

Mild weather and a weak futures screen combined to drop cashprices early for the second straight trading session yesterday. Butunlike last Friday, there was no late rally in the futures screento spark an afternoon rebound. The Northeast and Midcontinentexperienced the most significant drops, with many points in the tworegions falling more than a dime. Some western points avoided thegeneral weakness, with PG&E climbing almost a dime and theSoCal Border and Opal rising a few cents.

Taking a cue from Wednesday’s Access trading session, thefutures market probed lower yesterday as weak longs and speculatorstook profits away from the price rally earlier this week. TheNovember contract was dealt the largest blow, slipping 13.6 centsto finish at $2.834. December closely followed by tumbling 10.8cents to $3.051.

Producers – and the lawyers, brokers and analysts they breakbread with – received a second helping of what was for lunch eightmonths ago at Houston’s Petroleum Club: a bullish outlook for gasprices.

It shouldn’t have shocked anyone when the October aftermarketstarted out weak; after all, a number of sources had beenpredicting such a situation to NGI all week. The softening fromindex levels in swing deals done Thursday for today-only flow wasdivided somewhat on a geographic basis: declines of 15-20 cents ormore in the East were considerably greater than those in the West,which generally were less than a dime. California points evenmanaged about flat showings.

After resisting for nearly two trading sessions the promptcontract finally caved to selling pressure late Tuesday as localtraders liquidated the last of their positions. On that sour notethe October natural gas futures contract completed its tenure asprompt month yesterday by slipping 7.2 cents to $2.56. Estimatedvolume was robust as 122,906 contracts changed hands.

After much talk earlier in the week about how weak the cashmarket looks, it must have surprised some traders Wednesday to seeall but a few scattered points range from flat to as much as anickel higher. Between a neutral screen and no change infundamental factors, sources had trouble explaining why Tuesday’sprice skid came to such a quick halt only a day later. A marketersaid he wanted to suggest the “bears” had gone into hibernation,but it was too long before winter begins for that.

If the results of last week’s Gulf of Mexico lease sale are any indication, the federal government is now feeling the effects of weak commodity prices and industry consolidation.

Columbia Energy Group barely overcame warmer than normaltemperatures, weak gas prices and higher marketing costs during thefirst quarter to post a 2% increase in earnings. The companyreported first quarter 1999 earnings of $150.4 million, or $1.81per share, up from $147.5 million or $1.77 per share in 1Q98.

Columbia Energy Group barely overcame warmer than normaltemperatures, weak gas prices and higher marketing costs during thefirst quarter to post a 2% increase in earnings. The companyreported first quarter 1999 earnings of $150.4 million, or $1.81per share, up $2.9 million, or four cents per share, from $147.5million or $1.77 per share in the 1998 first quarter. Strongperformances by its regulated transmission, storage anddistribution operations, as well as its propane, power generationand LNG activities were offset by continued difficulties inmarketing and exploration and production.