PG&ampE Corp. is consolidating overall management of its PacificNorthwest and Texas natural gas operations to gain someefficiencies and prepare for expanding into unspecified marketsthroughout North America. A total of about 100 positions, less than10% of the 1,000-person work force, will be eliminated from PG&ampEGas Transmission (PG&ampE GT)-spread equally among the Texas andPortland, OR, operations.

And in an unrelated action, PG&ampE Energy Trading let 11 gastraders go in a “retooling, refocusing” of its trading operations.A spokeswoman said the company is “centralizing all risk managementto optimize our assets. We found that some of the individuals.don’tserve the company’s needs going forward.” She said PG&ampE EnergyTrading intends to fill some vacant positions with traders withmore experience executing “longer-term, more structured trades.”

The reorganization of the gas transportation operations isintended to help integrate what were basically autonomous naturalgas transmission, storage, gathering and liquids operations. Thevarious divisions had operated separately since the acquisition ofthe Texas assets from Valero and Teco Pipeline in 1996-97.

Among specific transportation personnel changes were theconcentration of most senior executives in a still-small butgrowing Houston office, placement of the senior executive foroperations in San Antonio and concentration of transmission andstorage service operations in Portland. The president of PG&ampEGT, Thomas King, indicated offices will remain in Portland, SanAntonio and Houston as a means of using regional ties to build anational presence.

PG&ampE GT operates 9,000 miles of interstate transmissionpipeline, including a system out of western Canada (Alberta)serving the U.S. Pacific Northwest and California and one in Texas,in addition to nine gas processing plants and a100,000-barrel-per-day natural gas liquids (NGL) operation and500-mile NGL pipeline in Texas.

©Copyright 1999 Intelligence Press, Inc. All rightsreserved. The preceding news report may not be republished orredistributed in whole or in part without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.