Weeks

At the request of potential new shippers, Petal Gas StorageL.L.C. has extended by three weeks its open season to determinewhether there’s enough market demand for further expansion of itstwo storage caverns in Mississippi.

The third time was not the charm. After avoiding the usualsoftness associated with lower weekend demand for two weeks in arow, prices finally bowed to the inevitable Friday and dropped bysmall amounts of a nickel or less nearly across the board.

Following a run of more than two weeks, MRT lifted effectiveSaturday the OFO that was put in place Jan. 19.

El Paso Natural Gas may have gotten the industry’s largestChristmas bonus last week. Its announcement two weeks ago that itrecontracted all of its California-bound capacity for $37.5 millionwas a bit premature and a little understated. As it turned out,Enron North America Corp. upped the ante last week for 1.25 Bcf/dof firm transportation capacity on the pipeline by $8 millionfollowing a four-day open season.

El Paso Natural Gas may have gotten the industry’s largest Christmas bonus last week. Its announcement two weeks ago that it recontracted all of its California-bound capacity for $37.5 million was a bit premature and a little understated. As it turned out, Enron North America Corp. upped the ante last week for 1.25 Bcf/d of firm transportation capacity on the pipeline by $8 million following a four-day open season.

Northern Natural Gas took its Plains Turbine down Monday forabout three weeks of unplanned repairs. The outage affects 100,000MMbtu/d at nine points on the Hobbs System in southeastern NewMexico.

Mitchell Energy announced increased production for the secondtime in two weeks yesterday, as the Woodlands, TX-based companysaid new drilling technology has lowered drilling costs and allowedthe company to double, and possibly even triple, production fromits Barnett Shale gas play. As a result of this acceleratedproduction, Mitchell has added 213 Bcf of reserves, whichrepresents a 25% increase in its total reserve base.

After touching the lowest level in almost two weeks earlyMonday, the June futures market was bid higher throughout the restof the session as traders took profits from last week’s sell-off.June finished up 5.8 cents for the day at $2.311, just off its$2.32 high.

Semco Energy Inc. sold Semco Energy Services, its natural gasmarketing arm, to MCN Energy Group only weeks after announcingintentions to exit the gas marketing side of its business. Nofinancial terms of the deal were disclosed except that Semcoexpects to record a gain on the sale and the companies expect thetransaction to close by the end of March.