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Gold/Mining/Energy : Swift Energy (SFY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FloydP who wrote (1185)	9/14/2000 9:34:55 AM
From: Liatris Spicata	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1602

Not Exactly Earthshattering News, but Chip Cummins, article in today's WSJ suggests NG is a good place to be now. <<As supply concerns keep oil prices above $30 per barrel, the tightest natural-gas market in years has sent prices of the other fossil fuel to dizzying heights of its own in recent sessions. Natural-gas producers have been ramping up production all summer, throwing mothballed drilling rigs and offshore platforms back into service and pumping up budgets for natural-gas exploration and production. But those efforts look like they may be coming too late to help consumers this winter. "We're drilling at unprecedented levels," says John Sharpe at the Natural Gas Supply Association, a Washington lobbying group that represents the country's biggest producers. "It would be very difficult to find any spare equipment out there." Indeed, the companies that contract drilling rigs and equipment for natural-gas exploration and production are reporting soaring utilization rates. ... Still, production isn't keeping up with demand. Budgets for finding and producing natural gas were sharply pared back as energy prices fell in the last two years. With prices high again, companies can afford the cost of finding and pumping more gas, but they can't get to it fast enough. They are also running into labor shortages on the gas fields of Texas and on drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Inventory Is Low Meanwhile, a closely watched cushion of stored inventory reported by utility companies each week is about 15% below where it was this time last year and 10% below a five-year average for the season. That has worried many -- traders in futures pits most of all -- that the country is facing an imminent natural-gas squeeze.>> Larry