Daily GPI

Dominion, which already had some trading appetizers on thetable, is taking a bigger bite of the dotcom marketplace,announcing yesterday that its Dominion Energy Clearinghouse willoffer a one-stop shop customized for its wholesale customers toprice and buy energy commodities.

OGE Energy Corp. has scored a second natural gas transportationcontract in less than a month for its Transok pipeline system, thelatest with PECO Energy Co.’s Power Team to transport gas to a new800 MW power plant under construction in Jenks, OK. Enogex Inc., anOGE subsidiary, will operate the new facility.

Niagara Mohawk Power customers and marketers got an earlyholiday present this month, when Tennessee Gas Pipeline beganservice Dec. 1 on the direct connection from its 200 Line nearCedar Hill, NY to the gas distribution system of Niagara MohawkPower near Albany. The new 2.7-mile lateral has the capacity tosupply the proposed Bethlehem Energy Center being developed nearthe connection site. Stephen C. Beasley, president of TennesseeGas, said the connection offers a “variety of new opportunities forshippers on Tennessee,” and will eliminate rate stacking of coststhrough multiple pipelines.

Due to forecasts of colder than normal temperatures in theKansas City metropolitan area, Williams implemented an OFOSaturday. The OFO was to remain in effect though Monday’s gas dayor until further notice.

Weekend winter storms in much of the Midcontinent/Midwestcombined with expectations of even worse to come this week over amuch wider area to push cash prices higher by well over a dollar atnearly all points. Only the PG&E citygate was a tad shy ofrealizing a three-digit advance.

Boosted by higher cash market prices, natural gas futures gappedhigher at the open Monday as traders continued to make up groundlost in the precipitous decline early last week. However, insimilar fashion to last week, January futures ran into heavyoverhead selling, pressuring the market lower for much of thesession. The prompt month finished at $8.527, up 13.1 cents on theday, but off 67.3 cents from its $9.20 opening trade.

Mirroring similar action he took last summer in the face ofskyrocketing wholesale power prices, California Gov. Gray Davis onFriday asked his state attorney general to investigate the recentsevere spike in wholesale natural gas prices at the Californiaborder, where prices are among the highest in the nation. In aseparate action, two class action lawsuits were filed Monday inCalifornia Superior Court, alleging that gas and electricity pricespikes are the result of a four-year-old “conspiracy” by SouthernCalifornia Gas, San Diego Gas and Electric and El Paso Natural Gas.(see separate story)

A revised National Weather Service forecast, expanding theprediction of below normal temperatures for the Christmas weekendto the entire United States except for the sparsely populated UpperPlains, kept most prices from softening Friday, as some hadanticipated. Except for the still-most-expensive West Coast market,all other points realized gains from about a dime (San Juan Basin)to a little more than 50 cents (Northern Natural Gas market area).

Fueled by another round of bullish weather forecasts andfollowing on the heels of gains achieved in Thursday night’s Accesstrading session, natural gas spiraled higher Friday, as traderstook back ground lost earlier in the week. When the dust hadcleared and the orders were counted in the data room at Nymex, theJanuary contract was 98.3 cents higher on the day, but still off18.8 cents for the week.