El Paso Natural Gas President Richard Baish said the pipelinerejected all of the bids for available California-bound capacity onits system during the second open season, which ended yesterday.

“We didn’t find any that met” the minimum revenue thresholdrequirements for the capacity, Baish told NGI at presstime. Hethinks El Paso’s remaining available capacity of 1.25 Bbtu/d willbe awarded through a negotiated deal, as it was done two years agowith Dynegy Energy and Trade. “I expect that’s what’s going tohappen this time.” He said a “number of people already havecontacted us” about doing a negotiated arrangement for either allor part of the capacity package. But he declined to disclose thenames of the companies. The pipeline’s first try at auctioning offthe 1.4 Bcf/d of capacity produced only one winner of a smallportion of the capacity. (See Daily GPI, Oct. 5)

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