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Low commodity prices and industry belt-tightening picked off theRocky Mountain Oil & Gas Association (RMOGA). The trade groupsaid it will shut its doors June 1. The move comes amidreorganization of the American Petroleum Institute (API) andfollows talk last year of combining the Natural Gas SupplyAssociation with API. Clearly, the pressure is on to cut costs, andtrade association dues paying has become less of a priority.

Ocean Energy announced Tuesday it has signed purchase and salesagreements with various companies to divest certain U.S. onshoreassets in an effort to reduce its debt before merging with SeagullEnergy Corp. The sales total $42 million and are located primarilyin the Midcontinent, Permian Basin and Rocky Mountain regions.

National Fuel Gas used a hearing in the Pennsylvania senateTuesday to voice its opposition to the state’s gas deregulationbill. It is the only LDC to oppose the bill so far.

In what some sources referred to as “winter’s last hurrah,” cashprices began the week on an up-note as they garnered momentum froma futures rally and continued covering of first-of-month shortpositions. Cash prices at most trading areas around the countrygained 1-3 cents from weekend levels.

For the second Monday in a row the futures market kicked off theweek with a lower open, which featured bears as the earlyaggressors. That, however, is where the similarities between thetwo weeks ended. Whereas prices continued down the slippery slopelast Monday, yesterday’s trend was almost a straight line higher.Sources said a number of factors-technical short-covering,supportive weather forecasts and even a boost from the nearby crudeoil trading pit-were reasons for the 7-cent gain to $1.769 in Aprilfutures yesterday.

Semco Energy Inc. sold Semco Energy Services, its natural gasmarketing arm, to MCN Energy Group only weeks after announcingintentions to exit the gas marketing side of its business. Nofinancial terms of the deal were disclosed except that Semcoexpects to record a gain on the sale and the companies expect thetransaction to close by the end of March.

A group of producers and marketers said it backs the “general[policy] objectives” on offshore regulation that were espoused lastmonth by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson in a letter to FERC, butstresses that debate over the “key issue” of the jurisdictionalstatus of offshore natural gas pipelines involves “a legal, not apolicy” matter.

PennzEnergy Co. and Sonat Exploration Co. formed a joint ventureto develop mineral interests underlain by coal bed methane at the700,000-acre Vermejo Park Ranch in northeast New Mexico.PennzEnergy has held the bulk of the mineral rights since 1970.

It took FERC only a few days to recognize that ANR PipelineCo.’s March 8 application for a second Wisconsin expansion projectin 18 months fails to meet the Commission’s test for showing marketneed.