The California Public Utility Commission said it will host aroundtable on energy market and infrastructure issues Jan. 25 from9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Al Bahr Shrine Auditorium 5440 Kearny MesaRoad in San Diego. The commission currently is exploring issuesrelated to energy infrastructure, including rules for electric andgas competition and policies on distributed power. Discussions atthe roundtable will cover gas and power supply and demand,reliability and market structure. CPUC President Richard Bilas andCommissioners Josiah Neeper and Carl Wood are planning to attend.The CPUC plans to bring up issues such as the following: Are gasand electric supplies available to the San Diego area adequate tomeet consumers’ needs? What is the current level of gas and powersupply reliability? What new generation or energy conservationmeasures, or combination of both may be used in the future to meetsupply needs? Will electric prices decrease, stabilize or bepredictable now that the rate freeze has ended for San Diego Gas& Electric and the utility’s transition charges are paid off?What about the other utilities? Those interested may file writtencomments by Feb. 4. A written report on the roundtable will beissued.

Chevron Canada Resources and partners announced completion ofthe production test on Chevron’s Fort Liard natural gas well (M-25)located near Fort Liard, Northwest Territories. M-25 is Chevron’ssecond well drilled in the area following successful results oftheir K-29 well drilled in the spring of 1999. Fort Liard hasbecome a hot new producing area and the target of a potentialpipeline expansion. Chevron’s M-25 well tested gas in the Nahannizone and is expected to produce at the rate of 50-75 MMcf/d of rawgas, going into production sometime in the fourth quarter, 2000.Over the next three months, Chevron and partners will construct a20-mile pipeline and associated facilities to bring its gasdiscovery to market by May 2000. The producing rate of the K-29discovery is expected to be 75 MMcf/d. The pipeline will bring thegas to an existing pipeline at Pointed Mountain, NWT and ontoprocessing facilities at Ft. Nelson, British Columbia where it willenter the main Westcoast gas system.

Gulf Midstream Services (GMS) has purchased the Strachan NorthGas Gathering System from Westcoast Capital Corp. (WCC), aWestcoast Energy subsidiary. The gathering system is a 41-mile gaspipeline, constructed in 1998 and located in west central Alberta.It currently transports about 115 MMcf/d of raw sour gas to theStrachan Gas Plant for processing. The acquisition fits well withGMS’ other recent purchase of a 65% interest in the Sunchildgathering pipeline, which transports raw sour gas to the NordeggRiver Gas Plant. And GMS has begun construction of a gatheringsystem that will connect the Nordegg plant to another plant in thearea. “Taken together, these investments enable us to connect threemajor sour gas processing facilities, with a combined capacity of568 MMcf/d,” says GMS President Jim Bertram. “Given the increasedindustry activity in the area, this network of gas gathering andprocessing capacity is an attractive long-term investment. Ourgathering pipeline infrastructure will provide area producers withaccess to reliable, efficient and flexible sour gas processingcapacity and will reduce the need for construction of new gasprocessing facilities.”

Frigid weather Monday resulted in PP&L, Inc.’s customerssetting an electricity-use record by early evening. Preliminaryfigures show PP&L, Inc. delivered 6,886,000 kilowatt-hours ofelectricity between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Monday. That exceeds theprevious record high of 6,688,000 kilowatt-hours set between 5 p.m.and 6 p.m. on Jan. 14, 1999, during an ice storm that interruptedpower to about 15,000 of the utility’s customers.

PECO Energy said its electric and gas output set new winter peakrecords on Monday breaking marks set six years ago in January 1994.Frigid temperatures dipped into the single digits overnight. PECOEnergy said all of its regional power plants are running to meetelectric needs, and gas supply is sufficient on the pipelines tomeet the customer demand for heating. PECO said its gas sendout was718 MMcf/d, 16% greater than the previous record day six years agoon Jan. 20, 1994. Total electric output was 124.4 million kWh,slightly above the previous record from January 1994. The hourlyelectric peak output Monday also reached a new seasonal high at6,135 MW, about 5% greater than the earlier peak.

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