ONE of his favorite basic-value stocks is El Paso Energy, a natural-gas company.

Some analysts say that relatively high prices are here to stay, and that they will be a boon for natural-gas companies.

However, will a natural-gas company sign a fixed 30-year contract at today's price?

For example, the winter of 2001-02 was relatively warm, "so Wall Street marked down all natural-gas companies, giving us an entry point to buy shares," he said.

Thomas F. McLarty 3d/Chief of Staff Former chairman of Arkla, a natural-gas company.

Even the Macquarie Infrastructure Company trust, which collects much of its income from selling fuel for private aircraft, owns a natural-gas company in Hawaii.

NTV was taken over last summer by its largest creditor, the state-controlled natural-gas company Gazprom, after a long legal battle climaxed by a boardroom coup.

That's no small thing for a millionaire businessman who presided for the last seven years over a natural-gas company in a rough-and-tumble business.

Arbess still had no secure supplies of raw materials and other key inputs, so he made the natural-gas company a partner in exchange for guaranteed energy.

In the meantime, some utilities have made deals to buy natural-gas companies, which have had experience coping with deregulation since the late 1980's.