1998

Capitol Hill lawmakers, federal and state regulators and anumber of power industry representatives last week indicated thatthe results of the FERC staff inquiry into the pricing turmoil inthe Midwest power market were a vindication of their originalsuspicions. Staff proved once and for all, they said, thatelectricity restructuring was not the culprit behind the pricespike in late June, and it found nothing that smacked of marketmanipulation.

Almost a third of gas and oil companies surveyed expect to havecompleted Year-2000 (Y2K) remediation by the end of the year,according to the results of a new survey by the Natural Gas Council(NGC). It further found that 73% said they would be ready by June1999, while all respondents indicated they would be prepared byDecember 1999.

Dauphin Island Gathering Partners (DIGP) has signed an uniquesupply and gathering agreement with producers Elf Exploration Inc.,Coastal Oil and Gas, Nippon Oil Exploration U.S.A. and PogoProducing, who are partners in the deep-water Virgo prospect.

As industry replies to FERC’s data requests on the June pricespikes in the power market began to pour in yesterday, critics insome electricity circles said that the questions posed by theCommission were too little, too late to elicit any meaningfulinformation into the causes for the price run-up earlier thissummer in the Midwest.

Two Canadian energy retailers soon will be served byAtlanta-based Utilipro Inc., provider of customer care solutions.Utilipro recently signed a letter of intent with Direct EnergyMarketing Limited (DEML), Canada’s largest independent gasmarketer, and Apollo Gas Inc. (AGI), a subsidiary of Apollo GasIncome Fund, to directly bill customers for gas and energy-relatedservices.

Southern California Gas will hold a one-day auction Sept. 1 tosell its exclusive rights to buy 370 miles of large-diametertransmission pipeline and related facilities currently transporting1.1 Bcf/d of supplies from Rocky Mountain and Southwest supplysources. The winning bid(s) will be announced Sept. 16, SoCalGasofficials said this week. A previously announced June8-through-mid-July auction was canceled because of state regulatorydelays, they said. Both the auction and results will be accessiblethrough the large gas-only distribution utility’s on-line GasSelectservice and company website on the Internet(www.socalgas.com/3rdparty/kern).

Prosper Business Development Corp., along with Energy.com Corp.,has launched the energy industry’s first cooperative marketingcampaign aimed at eliminating the confusion about gas retail choiceat the small commercial and residential level, and at making itaffordable for gas marketing companies to target these two customerclasses.

FERC ventured into unknown territory yesterday to help Georgia’slargest gas utility implement retail unbundling behind its citygateon Nov. 1 but avoid costs stranded by retail competition. In afour-to-one vote, the Commission granted Atlanta Gas Light alimited one-year waiver of certain federal regulations, allowing itto allocate, rather than release under the regulated competitivebidding procedure, 102,100 Dth/d of capacity on Southern NaturalGas to marketers taking over gas sales on its distribution system.

Dynegy CEO Chuck Watson attributed his company’s improved secondquarter performance to stronger margins in the wholesale gas andelectric businesses despite weaker margins in the company’s liquidsbusiness.