Avoids

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) beat Wall Street estimates and avoided the large one-time negative charges of a year ago in announcing earnings from continuing operations for the second quarter of $150 million, or 66 cents/share, compared to a loss of $227 million, or $1.10/share.

So much for those who expected Thursday’s general flatness toremain in vogue for a while. Chilly Pacific Northwest points(Sumas, Stanfield and Kingsgate) constituted the only regionalmarket where flat quotes continued to prevail Friday, whileelsewhere most prices ranged from mildly lower to down about 20cents. California again registered much greater declines than theoverall market.

The nation’s energy spotlight continued to glare unrelentinglyon California’s electricity market as it narrowly avoided the needfor rolling blackouts last week, and now the state’s energyofficials are left holding their collective breath this week,watching weather, supply, price and regulatory indicators.

The nation’s energy spotlight continued to glare unrelentinglyon California’s electricity market as it narrowly avoided the needfor rolling blackouts last week, and now the state’s energyofficials are left holding their collective breath this week,watching weather, supply, price and regulatory indicators.

Puget Sound Energy managed to work out a deal last week to avoida municipal takeover of its service to 8,800 businesses andresidents in Lakewood, WA. Instead, the Lakewood City Council,which had considered a costly condemnation and purchase of PSE’spower distribution system last spring, voted unanimously to workcollaboratively with the utility to improve service for electricitycustomers.

Much like two Fridays earlier, the usual drop in gas demand thataccompanies business slowdowns over a weekend failed to have anegative effect on prices last Friday. Although it later fell morethan a nickel, an initially higher screen helped cash achieve gainsranging up to about a dime at nearly all points. Only San JuanBasin, the Southern California border and PG&E citygateregistered losses, and those were small at 3 cents or less.

Bay State Gas avoided a significant bypass by the MassachusettsMunicipal Wholesale Electric Co. (MMWEC) thanks to landowneropposition to a larger pipeline proposal and a lengthy negotiationprocess. After two years of work on an alternative 15-mile bypassof the Bay State system that would have linked with Tennessee GasPipe Line, MMWEC yesterday signed a 20-year agreement covering 13Bcf/year of new gas transportation on Bay State’s system to servepower generation load.

During the first quarter, Coastal Corp. continued to avoid themarket slump that has plagued the producing community, posting an11% increase in earnings to $134.5 million, or 62 cents per share,which was slightly better than the 60 cents/share that Wall Streetexpected. In 1Q98, the company earned $122.9 million, or 55 centsper share, but booked a $1.9 million loss related to an asset sale.

The gas market actually did pretty well last year considering itwas the warmest year on record, but it may take an ice age toreduce the surplus storage gas bequeathed to 1999. Spotdelivered-to-pipeline gas prices averaged $2.02/MMBtu in 1998, down41 cents, or 17%, from 1997. Some points faired better than othersand the West generally did better than the East. Canada actuallycame out ahead.