Natural gas futures turned lower yesterday when a mixed bag ofspeculative and non-speculative selling more than offset light fundbuying. After gapping lower at the open, the February contractquickly mapped out its small, 5-cent trading range and moved verylittle for the remainder of the session. But the price damage hadalready been done, leaving the prompt month 9.6 cents lower tofinish at $1.975 and putting an abrupt halt to a 3-day, 29 centprice spike.
Yesterday
Articles from Yesterday
PG&E Energy Signs Key Power Deal
PG&E Energy Services kicked off the new year with a bangyesterday by announcing it inked a major deal with Equity OfficeProperties Trust, the largest publicly held owner and manager ofoffice properties in the nation, to supply electricity to itsoffice buildings in northern California.
Industry Gets Second Extension for Christmas
FERC yesterday played Santa Claus to the natural gas industry bygranting its wish for a second extension of the deadline forcomments on the mega-notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR)addressing short-term capacity issues and notice of inquiry (NOI)focusing on long-term transportation issues (RM98-10, RM98-12]. Butit did not close the door for those few who might want to filecomments under the current schedule.
Timid Futures Show Slight Drop
Here today; gone tomorrow was the prevailing mentality in thefutures arena yesterday when the coldest temperatures of the yearwere more than offset by forecasts calling for a warm-up by earlynext week. And as has been the case for most of the month, it wascash prices that not only led the way for the futures market, butalso notched a larger change on the day-where the January contracttrickled down, 2.2 cents to settle at $1.925, cash prices sank by adime on many pipes.
CPUC’s Hands are Tied on Restructuring Issues
The California Public Utility Commission yesterday decided toleave Southern California Gas Co.’s interstate transportation ratesbundled, determining that a state law passed last summer preventsthe commission from taking any action on gas industry restructuringissues until the year 2000.
FERC Addresses Contested Settlement Concerns
In the wake of a recent court ruling overturning FERC on a keyissue in the El Paso Natural Gas rate settlement, the Commissionyesterday in an unrelated case spelled out the standards andprocedures it follows in settlement cases where contested issuesare raised.
Water Main Break Causes MichCon Rupture
MichCon crews were working yesterday to restore gas service todowntown Detroit businesses and residents after the pressure of awater main break caused a nearby gas line to rupture. The ruptureoccurred at the corner of St. Antoine and Mullet Street, behind theFrank Murphy Hall of Justice at about 11 p.m. Saturday, causingwater to flood MichCon’s gas line.
EIA Outlook Shows Tough Challenges Ahead
The Energy Information Administration released its Annual EnergyOutlook 1999 (AEO99) yesterday, projecting gas demand will grow byabout 50% to 33.17 Tcf by 2020 from 1997 levels of 22.59 Tcf, whichis a 1.7% average annual increase. Total energy demand is projectedto grow 1.1%/year to 119.9 quadrillion Btu by 2020 from 94 quads in1997.
FERC, States to Confer on Power Grid Districting
FERC yesterday approved an initiative paving the way for it tobegin discussions with state regulators as a preliminary step topotentially dividing up the nationwide electricity transmissiongrid into regional districts and boundaries to further promotecompetition and eliminate undue discrimination against powercustomers.
AES Grabs IL Foothold with $885M CILCORP Buy
International power generation developer AES Corp. continued anaggressive acquisition strategy yesterday with the purchase of all13.6 million shares of Peoria, IL-based CILCORP, parent of CentralIllinois Light Co., for $65 per share, a 22% premium. The value ofthe transaction is about $885 million.