Affiliate

Progress Ventures, Inc., an affiliate of Florida Power, Carolina Power & Light and North Carolina Natural Gas, paid about $153 million in cash and stock to Westchester Gas Co. for about 140 Bcf of gas reserves, 215 producing gas wells, 52 miles of intrastate pipeline and 170 miles of gas gathering systems in Texas and Louisiana. The purchase price includes about $135 million in common stock and about $18 million in cash.

Kern River reported being informed by affiliate Williams Field Services that Opal Plant was experiencing gas quality issues involving high water content at the tailgate. WFS was cutting Opal nominations in the Intraday 2 process Monday. The plant dropped 85 MMcf Monday from its normal throughput of about 740 MMcf/d, a WFS spokesman said, but the situation was improving Tuesday and any further loss was expected to be minimal.

The Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM) in Washington has branched out with a new affiliate, CAEM Canada, which has as its first major policy initiative, the Canadian Energy Restructuring Forum.

An affiliate of Houston-based Nabors Industries Inc. said it intends to make a cash offer to acquire all of the common shares of Command Drilling Corp. for C$3.30 per share. 19552 Yukon Inc. said the bid represents a 20% premium over the closing price of the Command shares on Sept. 14, 2001.

Noble Affiliate Inc.’s board of directors has approved an expanded program to repurchase common stock from time to time in the open market or privately negotiated transactions. The Houston company’s original program of $50 million has been increased to $100 million, and of the $100 million now authorized, about $70 million remains available to purchase additional shares. The company has already repurchased $30 million of stock and intends to hold all of the repurchased stock shares as treasury shares. As of Aug. 6, there were 56.6 million shares of issued and outstanding common stock.

A Shell Oil Co. affiliate, Shell Energy Services LLC, is exiting the Ohio retail electricity market and the Texas Electric Choice program in part because of the slowdown in deregulation and the volatility in energy prices over the past year.

In the report on the adjournment of the FERC hearing investigating alleged market affiliate abuses by El Paso Natural Gas and its affiliates, which ran in NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index for Tuesday, Aug. 7: Note El Paso executives did not refuse to respond to questions from Judge Wagner. El Paso attorneys declined to put the executives on the stand — which would have subjected them to questions from the California Public Utilities Commission and others — as part of the case, saying El Paso’s case was closed. The attorneys said, however, the executives were willing to respond to the judge’s questions. Wagner did not ask any questions.

Staff at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) has urged state regulators to reject the pending merger between FirstEnergy Corp. and GPU Inc. on the grounds that the two companies have failed to back up claims that the merger will not harm ratepayers in the Garden State, among other things.

Staff at the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) has urged state regulators to reject the pending merger between FirstEnergy Corp. and GPU Inc. on the grounds that the two companies have failed to back up claims that the merger will not harm ratepayers in the Garden State, among other things.