Been

Dynegy Inc. announced earlier this week that the date of itsproposed merger with Illinova Corp. has been temporarily postponedbecause certain power plant sales to El Paso Energy will takelonger to close than expected. The company had planned on finishingthe merger Jan. 4. Now, Dynegy is pushing back its projected dateof close until later in the month.

The last chapter in the saga of the aborted 2 Bcf Wells, ME, LNGproject has been filed at FERC. A settlement agreement submittedlast week allows LNG project developer Granite State GasTransmission to recover $8.3 million in predevelopment coststhrough Northern Utilities’ ratepayers over a seven-year period.

Three independent system operators — ISO New England, The NewYork ISO, and PJM Interconnection — which have been workingtogether to improve power supply reliability, recently addedanother ISO to their cooperation pact.

It is often said markets can fall twice as fast as they rise,and that has never been more evident than it was in the natural gasfutures market over the past two weeks. After all, what took bullsfive and a half days to produce, took the bears just two and a halfto knock down. With a 7.8-cent decline to settle at $2.444, theJanuary contract was 26 cents below Monday’s highs and 0.2 centsbelow its Dec. 10 settle.

Three independent system operators — ISO New England, The NewYork ISO, and PJM Interconnection — which have been workingtogether to improve power supply reliability, recently addedanother ISO to their cooperation pact.

As had been expected, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)yesterday approved the $81 billion combination of Exxon and Mobil.The companies said they have accepted the terms of the FTC consentorder.

OGE Energy Corp. announced that E. Keith Mitchell has beenappointed to the position of vice president of gas services atEnogex Inc., OGE Energy’s natural gas pipeline subsidiary. Mitchellwill continue to report directly to Enogex President Roger A.Farrell and will ultimately be responsible for the marketing andsale of gas transportation, gas liquids, and related services.

When futures took a steep dive after cash trading had beencompleted Thursday, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to predictthat cash prices would be headed into the dumpster Friday. Sureenough, quotes for the weekend were way down. Most of the declineswere between 10 and 25 cents, but some in Appalachia and theNortheast reached the 40-50 cents range. The smaller drops tendedto be concentrated at western points.

Some 11th-hour life has been pumped back into a proposal forallowing gas distribution competition in an industrialized part ofthe East San Francisco Bay. Two members of the five-memberCalifornia Public Utilities Commission have proposed an alternativeto the Western Gas Resources pipeline proposal, which would servecustomers inside Pacific Gas & Electric’s franchise territory.The CPUC is scheduled to take up competing approaches when it meetsNov. 4 in San Francisco.