Well

Southern California border prices pushed well beyond $7 Tuesday,while PG&E citygates and Malin appeared to be in a catch-uprace with huge upticks of nearly a dollar at both NorthernCalifornia points. However, the big news that El Paso had gottenfederal approval to resume reduced service on its South Mainline’sLine 1110 did not come until late in the afternoon (see relatedstory in this issue).

Despite the fact that bids were considered well below whatgovernment officials hoped, Alberta soon expects to be the firstCanadian province to successfully deregulate its power industryafter five companies won the rights to sell electric power in thecoming retail marketplace, which opens Jan. 1, 2001.

Forest Oil Corp. announced the completion of the Liard pipelineand initial production from the P-66A Well in the NorthwestTerritories. Production rates are anticipated to increase graduallyduring the next several weeks to a target rate of 35 to 50 MMcf/d,resulting in net sales of gas by Forest of 15 to 20 MMcf/d.Production is being transported and processed through the Westcoastsystem. Based on current prices, processing and transportationfees, and production costs, the netback for the production fromthis field is US$2.25/Mcf, the company said. Production from theFort Liard area is the first new gas to be brought on stream in theNorthwest Territories since the Pointed Mountain field in the early1970s. Forest has achieved production within 40 months of itsinitial participation in the Flett exploration program. Thisrepresents a significant achievement considering the remotelocation and lack of infrastructure in the area. It is expectedthat substantial reductions in cycle times will be achieved as aresult of the company-owned facilities now in place.

“Close, but no cigar” might as well have been the motto for thenatural gas futures market last week. It was a week in whichtraders pushed both May and June contracts to the limits of supportand resistance, only to have prices whip-saw back in their face. Bythe time all the dust had settled and the orders tabulated in thedata room at Nymex, the evidence was irrefutable. Natural gas isonce again stuck in a trading or consolidation range, bounded onone side by previous highs at $3.195 and on the other by a seriesof technical and fundamental hurdles between $2.90 and $3.00. TheMay contract went off the board in rather unspectacular fashionWednesday, settling at $3.089. Buoyed by heavy fund and localbuying Friday, the June contract retraced three straight days oflosses by closing up 8.6 cents at $3.141.

The Columbia Energy-NiSource marriage won’t kill the Millenniumpipeline project nor will strong opposition to its pipeline routein New York, Millennium Pipeline Chairman David Pentzien said lastweek in a letter to FERC’s Daniel M. Adamson, director of theOffice of Energy Projects.

The Columbia Energy-NiSource marriage won’t kill the Millenniumpipeline project nor will strong opposition to its pipeline routein New York, Millennium Pipeline Chairman David Pentzien said thisweek in a letter to FERC’s Daniel M. Adamson, director of theOffice of Energy Projects.

The founding cornerstone of regulation in Canada’s chiefenergy-supplier jurisdiction has turned out to be alive and well— and operating at the expense of natural gas producers.

Houston-based Amerex Natural Gas Inc. and sister company AmerexPower Inc. together bought the gas and electricity brokeragebusinesses of Houston-based BTU Brokers Ltd. for an undisclosedprice. As a result, Amerex’s daily average of physical and papergas deals grew 12.4% to $287 million, and physical and paper powerdeals increased 5% to $175 million for a combined annual value of$121 billion in gas and power deals.

Socrates did not say “an unexamined energy industry is not worthrunning.” But he might as well have. As long as there is gas andoil in the ground, it seems, there will be those willing to poreover statistics and share their findings.