Another

The industry will have to wait another week to see the storageimpact from Hurricane Georges, but judging from AGA’s reportyesterday, Hermine, following on Frances and Earl, did her share inpartly holding back the strong tide of injections. AGA reported ameasly 41 Bcf rise for the week ending Sept. 25, which shaved alarge 46 Bcf chunk off the storage surplus compared to last year.

Dynegy has agreed to manage all of Rochester Gas &Electric’s (RG&E) gas supply, transportation and storageassets, and help find ways to cut costs and optimize assets.

Union Pacific Resources Group (UPR) continues to march aheadwith its de-leveraging program, announcing last week that it agreedto sell interests in certain South Texas oil and gas properties toCollins &amp Ware Inc. for $148 million. The sale is scheduled toclose Oct. 30, subject to conditions, with an effective date ofSept. 1.

New York-based York Research Corp. announced this week it plansto exit the power marketing business following the pricing turmoilin the Midwest electricity market this summer, making it about theeighth or ninth marketer to take this action.

In the wild final hours of the California state legislature’s1998 session Monday (August 31), another bill aimed at curbing theleeway of the state energy regulators was passed (Senate Bill 1757)and is now awaiting the governor’s signature. A California PublicUtilities Commission representative at the state capitol said theregulators’ remain neutral on the bill, but may take a positionwhen they meet for a regularly scheduled commission conferenceThursday (Sept. 3).

Thursday’s trading was almost a repeat of Wednesday as cashquotes for both late August and September deteriorated again.Another big drop on the Nymex screen was too much for the physicalgas market to ignore, and sources continued to report that sellersgreatly outnumbered buyers. In some instances a buyer could almostname his or her September price, one trader said.

Another class action suit was filed against Triton Energy onbehalf of shareholders alleging the company misrepresented thevalue of its assets and prospects for the company. The most recentsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District ofTexas on behalf of those who acquired common stock on or betweenMarch 30 and July 17, says statements by the company and certainexecutives drove its stock price up during the class period.

Midcoast Energy Resources marked another in a chain of recentgrowth spurts with a definitive agreement to buy the Anadarkopipeline system from El Paso Field Services. Under the agreement,Midcoast will acquire the Anadarko system in Beckham and RogerMills counties, OK, and Hemphill, Roberts and Wheeler counties, TX.The system is made up of more than 696 miles of primarily 16-inchand 20-inch pipeline with an average throughput of 151 MMcf/day anda total capacity of 345 MMcf/day. The system gathers gas from about250 wells and includes a 40 MMcf/day gas processing facility, 11compressor stations with a total of more than 14,000 hp andinterconnections with eight major interstate and intrastatepipeline systems.

In another much-anticipated decision, FERC yesterday proposed anexpedited complaint process that would apply uniformly to all ofthe energy sectors that it regulates – natural gas pipelines,electric utilities, oil pipelines and hydroelectric concerns. Thecomplaint proposal, which was outlined in a notice of proposedrulemaking (NOPR), represented an “amalgam” of the best proposalsof the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, the PipelineCustomer Coalition and the Electric Industry Dispute ResolutionWorking Group, said Chairman James Hoecker.