Enron’s interstate natural gas pipelines soon will beginoffering capacity on EnronOnline, a breakthrough transportationservice that has never been done before. With its TranswesternPipeline leading the way, Enron said yesterday the pipeline wouldbe the first to offer capacity for bidding through an open seasonon EnronOnline, its electronic transaction platform. Bidding willbegin next week.

“The use of EnronOnline to market interstate transportationcapacity represents a major step forward as our pipelines look fornew ways to use e-commerce to better serve our customers,” saidStan Horton, chairman of Enron Gas Pipeline Group. “This innovativeapproach to marketing pipeline capacity clearly benefits bothinterstate pipelines and customers.”

Initially, Transwestern will offer 20,000 Dthd of firm capacityfor the month of July. An open season conducted through a sealedbid process will begin June 22 8 a.m. CST, and will close June 26at 2 p.m. CST. All bidders will be notified of acceptance orrejection of their bids by 4 p.m. CST the same day.

The Transwestern system consists of approximately 2,400 miles ofpipeline, with east-west delivery capability of 1.7 Bcf/d.

“By offering capacity services through our online service, weare offering our commodity transportation customers everything theyneed in one place,” said Enron’s Gina Taylor. “It’s just one moreoption to put everything in one place, and to help make everythingeasier.”

Several of Enron’s other pipelines, including Northern NaturalGas, Northern Border Pipeline and Florida Gas Transmission (FGT),also plan to offer interstate services on the e-commerce platformin the “near future,” according to officials.

Two Enron pipelines, Houston Pipe Line and Louisiana ResourcesPipeline pipe have not committed to the interstate capacity servicebut may do so in the future.

Since it was launched, EnronOnline has completed more than 140,000transactions overall, valued at more than $62 billion Taylorsaid. Enron officials claim that EnronOnline is the world’s largestInternet site, with more than $50 billion in transactions in less thanseven months of service – it debuted Nov. 29, 1999 (see Daily GPI, June 2).

In addition to the pipeline capacity, EnronOnline also tradesgas, power oil, coal, pulp and paper, clean air credits, bandwidth,weather and credit derivatives, petrochemicals and plastics. Itsnatural gas trading is the most active, according to officials.

Contact Steve Harris, vice president of Transwestern CommercialGroup, at (713) 853-1796 for information on the open season biddingwhich begins next week.

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