Southern California Gas and TransEnergy Management have formed apartnership to market an integrated software product to unbundlinglocal distributors who are struggling with exponentially greaternumbers of transportation contracts.

Providence Energy Corp. in Rhode Island is the first to purchasea license for its subsidiary, Providence Gas, to use the software.Providence officials said its was instrumental to the launch of anew customer choice program. “Our original estimate of 350 gastransportation customers was almost tripled for this first phase.LDC Manager enabled us to get our customer choice program off to astrong start,” said Nancy Montminy, Providence Gas unbundling teamleader.

Lee Stewart, senior vice president at SoCal Gas, said, “With theunbundling of the natural-gas industry, there is a strong need fora fully integrated software system. This cooperative effort allowsus to provide a packaged product needing little or nocustomization.

LDC Manager is a combined software applications derived fromSoCal Gas’ GasSelect system and TransEnergy’s Energy TransportationSystem (ETS). GasSelect provides nominating, scheduling andimbalance management functions for LDCs, while TransEnergy’s ETSprovides contract, pricing, accounting and administrativefunctionality.

SoCal Gas serves about 18 million consumers through 4.8 millionmeters throughout central and Southern California. It is theprincipal subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Pacific Enterprises.TransEnergy Management offers a software suite providing marketing,transportation, and risk management of energy, includingelectricity, gas and other energy commodities.

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