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CMS Energy Corp. dedicated its new headquarters building for CMSPanhandle Pipe Line Companies at 5444 Westheimer in Houston. About300 employees are moving to the new location.

Transwestern’s Bloomfield Compressor Station was hit bylightening at about 9 p.m. Sunday. The station is down, and damageis being evaluated. The outage affects 150,000 MMBtu/d.

A glance at NiSource’s second quarter earnings tells a lot aboutwhy it’s looking to Columbia for help. While Columbia won praisefrom analysts for beating second quarter earnings expectations witha 15% jump in net income to $26.1 million, or 32 cents per share,it’s hostile suitor NiSource struggled and fell short of WallStreet expectations by $0.03/share, reporting a 22% drop in netincome to $22.9 million or $0.18/share, from $29.5, or $0.24/sharein 2Q98.

Questar is cutting about 25,000 Dth/d while repairing mechanicalproblems that began Tuesday afternoon on its No. 3 compressor atFidlar Station.

Warm temperatures in major eastern cities and apprehension aboutthe possibility of “another bullish storage report” gave bulls thereason to buoy the market higher yesterday, and they did notsquander the opportunity. Buying, led mainly by commercial traders,sent the July contract up to a retest of its previous open outcrysession high of $2.41 before settling at $2.407. Estimated volumewas 73,884.

Increases of about a dime or more were common in the cash marketMonday. The upticks tended to be larger in the West, approaching 20cents in the California market and on some Rockies pipes. There wassome fundamental validation of Western firmness as the region wasunseasonably cool, especially in the Pacific Northwest, wheretemperatures were colder than in Alberta, a Calgary source said.

Texaco, operator of Sea Robin Processing Plant, has notified SeaRobin Pipeline that the plant will be out of service formaintenance for about six weeks starting April 1. The pipeline willnot generate LTA nominations during that period.

Northwest Pipeline’s preliminary investigation indicates thatland movement affecting about 500 feet of pipe was the cause of aline break Friday night near Stevenson, WA (see Daily GPI, March 1,2). Following industry practice, Northwest will send segments ofthe pipe for metallurgical testing to verify the rupture’s causeconclusively. A temporary 16-inch surface pipeline is beinginstalled to restore service to LDC Northwest Natural Gas in theNorth Bonneville, WA, area. Northwest Pipeline said it is workingwith geotechnical experts to plan permanent re-routing of theruptured 26-inch line outside the boundaries of the land movementarea.

Cabot Oil &Gas Corp. plans to acquire the onshore South Louisiana properties of Oryx Energy Co. for about $72 million. Under the terms of the agreement, Houston-based Cabot will purchase 10 fields (six operated, four non-operated) covering 34,345 net acres with 68 producing wells. The acquired producing assets are concentrated in three primary fields that each provide Cabot with a high working interest. These fields make up 80% of the value assigned to the transaction.