Become

The month of May provided a nice opportunity to become familiarwith the power emergency procedures that are likely to be utilizedduring peak demand periods in New England, New York, and theSouthwest this summer. The North American Electric ReliabilityCouncil’s 2000 Summer Assessment on the reliability of bulk powersupply concludes that these three areas probably will be challengedto meet peaking loads.

Utility.com has signed up Sempra Energy Trading to become the preferred wholesale natural gas provider behind the growing retail energy and communications website.

Utility.com has signed up Sempra Energy Trading to become thepreferred wholesale natural gas provider behind the growing retailenergy and communications website.

BP Amoco has become the latest producer to shell out big bucksto settle whistle-blower claims for underpayment of royalties onoil production during the past decade. It has agreed to pay $32million as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice(DOJ), joining the ranks of other oil producers – Mobil Oil ($45million), Oxy USA Inc. ($7.3 million), Chevron ($95 million) andConoco Inc. ($26 million). Two whistle-blowers alleged that BP andAmoco underpaid their royalties prior to their merger. Thecomplaint against BP and Amoco was filed in a federal court inLufkin, TX, where a number of other cases alleging underpayment ofroyalties on natural gas production are pending as well. The DOJalready has intervened in three civil lawsuits accusing affiliatesof ExxonMobil Corp., Shell Oil Co. and Burlington Resources Inc. of”knowingly undervaluing” their royalties on gas, and it hasindicated it is investigating other gas-royalty cases. The twowhistle-blowers who initiated the complaint against BP and Amocounder the False Claims Act will share more than $5.4 million of thesettlement proceeds.

Southern Company Energy Marketing and Utility.com formed apartnership to provide Southern’s wholesale electricity toUtility.com’s customers via the Internet. Southern Company EnergyMarketing (SCEM) will become the preferred wholesale electricityprovider to Utility.com. Southern also has taken an equity stake inUtility.com, with the right to make an additional investment insubsequent private financings.

Electric market participants in the Northeast last week resolvedto further explore whether the region should become one broadregional transmission organization (RTO) or whether it should bebroken up into smaller RTOs.

Electric market participants in the Northeast last week resolvedto further explore whether the region should become one broadregional transmission organization (RTO) or whether it should bebroken up into smaller RTOs.

Energy restructuring and other market forces have become driversfor the federal government’s almost decade-old effort to greatlyreduce Uncle Sam’s overall $4 billion utility bill, the director ofthe Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) told an industryaudience gathered last week in a Los Angeles suburb. As a result,the feds this year should meet their goal set in 1993 to reduceoverall federal facility energy use by 20%, said FEMP Director BethShearer.

As El Paso Energy sets about to become the biggest and best inpractically every sector of the natural gas and electric industry,its key gas pipeline subsidiary – El Paso Natural Gas – hasdistinguished itself on another front: it holds the record at FERCfor the most complaints filed against a single company.