gas

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Mark, Paul Krugman writes in today's NY Times:

> The natural gas story may be similar. Last year El Paso Natural Gas,
> which controls one of the crucial pipelines serving California,
> leased a big chunk of that pipeline's capacity to its own marketing
> subsidiary. That subsidiary has been widely accused of using its
> control of the pipeline to withhold gas from the California market,
> and thereby drive up prices. The company denies the accusation, and
> says that an internal document that talks about "ability to
> influence the physical market to the benefit of any financial/hedge
> position" wasn't saying what it seemed to be saying. But when the
> lease expired at the beginning of this month, gas prices in
> California promptly plunged 50 percent.

What happened? Has Armageddon been rescheduled?

Doug