Words

The war of words continues between El Paso Corp. Chairman William Wise and major shareholder Oscar S. Wyatt Jr., the former chairman of The Coastal Corp., whose company merged with El Paso last year. A three-page letter sent last Tuesday by Wyatt, which took to task the senior management, mark-to-market accounting and off-balance sheet transactions, evolved into an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Wednesday, where Wise defended his company’s businesses transactions, and assured regulators that all of the charges could be refuted.

Returning fire in the continuing war of words, a Duke Energy official on Friday refuted claims by former employees of its South Bay power facility that the company was manipulating plant output to drive up prices. The company called the charges unfounded, noting that the plant was actually directed by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), not Duke, to track fluctuations in electricity demand.

Returning fire in the continuing war of words, a Duke Energy official refuted claims by South Bay power plant ex-employees Friday, and said that output at the company’s plant was actually directed not by Duke, but by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO) to track fluctuations in electricity demand. The plant, he said, operated at top reliability at all times.

In the immortal words of baseball great Yogi Berra: “It’s déjàvu all over again!” A week after a smaller-than-expected storageinjection sent gas futures soaring by about a quarter, theoccurrence was repeated Wednesday afternoon. And just as thatprompted cash numbers to do their own skyrocket act last Thursday,so did sources predict similar fireworks in this morning’s action.

The war of words between the ANR Pipeline and Guardian PipelineLLC over the proposed Guardian line into southeastern Wisconsinraged on this week, bearing all the earmarks of theHatfields-and-McCoys’ feud – minus the rifles.

The battle between Coastal Corp.’s ANR Pipeline and supportersof the proposed Guardian Pipeline over the lucrative Wisconsin andnorthern Illinois markets intensified last week, as each sidepresented its case through displays of public support. Yet, despitethe bickering and ANR’s attempts to keep Guardian from being built,the pipeline project is expected to be filed with FERC as soon asnext month.

Storms and screen-those were the two big “S” words thatdominated trader conversations Monday. Yet despite weekend lossesof South Texas production to Hurricane Bret, more tropicaldisturbances lining up in the Atlantic and a spectacular push bythe September Henry Hub futures contract to finish above $3, cashprices found themselves hard-pressed to do much more than standtheir ground. Except for some small upticks in the West, mostpoints saw little if any price movement.

“Orderly” and “quiet” are not words that typically describe thenatural gas futures market-especially during hectic expiration-daytrading at Nymex. However, yesterday they were fitting descriptionsof a market that was only able to inch higher amid light commercialshort-covering. The June contract closed out its tenure as theprompt month with a 2.6-cent gain to settle at $2.226.