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Due to unplanned repairs on the Sullivan City Line in SouthTexas, 10 meters upstream of valve 407D-102 will be out of servicefor the next seven to 10 days, Tennessee announced late Tuesdayafternoon.

Following an East-West swing market division the day before,everybody was on the same page Tuesday. Except for merely smallgains at western points where Canadian gas is traded (i.e., Sumas,Stanfield, intra-Alberta), double-digit increases reigned. Octobernumbers also were reported rising.

After gapping higher on the open and racing to new highs,natural gas futures were hit with a powerful wave of selling latein the session that trimmed most of yesterday’s gains and lefttraders wondering if more selling is in store for the market on itsexpiration day today.

In the wake of President Clinton’s release of crude oil from theStrategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to mitigate heating oil pricesthis winter, Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-AK) of the Senate Energyand Natural Resources Committee yesterday asked Energy SecretaryBill Richardson whether the administration had anything up itssleeve to reduce natural gas prices as the industry enters thewinter heating season.

Dallas Cowboy fans are not alone. It has been a tough month ofSundays for natural gas bear traders as they have been forced towatch Friday’s downward price momentum gradually lose steam duringSunday evening Access trading, setting the stage for a pricerecovery when the regular open-outcry session re-opens Monday.

A stable of some of the leading energy companies have partneredup to form TradeSpark, an electronic marketplace powered bydeveloper eSpeed Inc., that will offer natural gas, electricity,coal, weather derivatives and emissions credits through theInternet, private enterprise or via voice brokers beginning Oct. 2.

Houston’s Enterprise Products Partners L.P. has purchasedAcadian Gas LLC’s extensive southern Louisiana assets, whichinclude 1,000-plus miles of pipeline, more than 1 Bcf/d of capacityand a leased natural gas storage facility with 3.4 Bcf of capacityfrom Coral Energy LLC for $226 million in cash. Coral Energy, alsobased in Houston, is an affiliate of Shell Oil Co.

The lead plaintiff deadline is today for class action lawsuitson behalf of Avista Corp.’s stockholders who may have lost moneyafter the company reported a loss of $22 million in the secondquarter. The losses followed unhedged power trades in the forwardmarket in the second quarter.

The Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control finallypassed down its much-delayed approval of Consolidated Edison’s(CEI) acquisition of Northeast Utilities (NU). The problem is,neither company, nor the state’s attorney general, is markingDPUC’s heavily conditional approval in the win column.