Basis

Calpine Corp. is planning to sell 400 MW on a fixed-price basisfor 30 months to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in the firstbilateral electricity deal for a California utility sinceregulators agreed to allow such transactions in the wake of thesummer’s wholesale price and supply problems.

In an attempt to put a lid on price volatility this summer, FERCyesterday approved temporary bid caps of $1,000/MWh for the NewEngland and New York power generation markets, bringing the bidceilings for the entire Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions intosync.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. said it replaced 100% of 1999worldwide oil and gas production on an equivalent barrel basis.Over the past five years, Occidental has replaced an average 171%of production. Occidental also said it lowered its finding anddevelopment costs by 65% since 1997, to $3.03 per barrel in 1999.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. of Oklahoma City, OK, fully exercised ona cash-less basis the common stock purchase warrant issued to itfrom Gothic Energy Corp. in March 1998 and had thereby acquired2,394,125 shares of Gothic common stock. Chesapeake now owns about13% of Gothic’s common stock. The warrant for 2,439,246 shares hadbeen issued to Chesapeake as part of a transaction involving theacquisition by Chesapeake of shares of Gothic’s senior redeemablepreferred stock, a 50% interest in Gothic’s Arkoma basin gas andoil properties and a 50% interest in substantially all of Gothic’sundeveloped acreage. The shares were issued pursuant to thecash-less exercise provisions of the warrant that permittedChesapeake to surrender the right to exercise the warrant inexchange for a number of shares (45,121) of Gothic common stock.

FERC has scheduled a public conference for April 15-16 toexamine the future of ISOs in administering the electrictransmission grid on a regional basis. The Commission isconsidering whether policy changes are necessary “in order topromote competition and reliability in bulk power markets.”