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With the cry for increased natural gas production being heardacross the North America, it’s no wonder that exploration andproduction companies such as Calgary-based Talisman Energy areupping their capital expenditure programs to try and meet demand.The company announced yesterday that it will boost its explorationand development ÿbudget by 44% over year 2000 levels to C$1.7billion.

Retiring Rep. Bill Archer (R-TX) was coy yesterday when asked torespond to reports that he is being considered for Energy Secretaryshould Texas Gov. George W. Bush ultimately be declared the nextpresident.

After being on the divestiture road for almost a year andshedding $3 billion worth of non-core assets, TransCanada PipeLinesLtd., reported that its first nine months of 2000 and third quartershowed progress over the equivalent time periods of 1999. Netearnings before asset sales and long-term natural gas contractlosses were $433 million ($0.91 per share) for the first ninemonths of 2000, compared to $402 million ($0.86 per share) duringthe same period last year. The company attributed the 8% increaseto higher income from the power and gas marketing businesses aswell as reduced financial and preferred equity charges. Beforeadding special items, the company posted third quarter net earningsof $151 million ($0.32 per share), compared to $141 million ($0.30per share) for the third quarter of 1999.Deliveries of natural gason the Canadian Mainline and the BC system were approximately thesame for the first nine months of 2000 and 1999. The CanadianMainline delivered about 7.3 Bcf/d for both periods, while the BCsystem delivered approximately 1.1 Bcf/d. The Alberta system didexperience a decline. For the first nine months of 2000 itdelivered an average of 12.2 Bcf/d, compared with the same periodduring 1999 when it delivered 12.4 Bcf/d. Marketing also stumbled abit, as the company marketed about 6.1 Bcf/d for the first ninemonths of 2000, compared to 6.6 Bcf/d for the first nine months of1999. TransCanada took a beating on some long-term natural gascontracts it had entered into to support various pipelineinvestments and other business initiatives. Due to growing naturalgas demand in Alberta, and excess pipeline capacity leaving theprovince, the price differential between the Western CanadaSedimentary Basin and eastern market areas continued to shrink.TransCanada was forced to enter into third party arrangements tocrystallize the negative value of its long term natural gascontracts and the company reported taking a $124 million after-taxcharge associated with the losses.

Almost a month and a half after being kicked out of Columbia Gas of Ohio’s Customer Choice program for failure to deliver gas to its customers in August, Ohio marketer Energy Max has found itself at the epicenter of a complaint lodged by the Ohio Consumers Council (OCC) in the interests of the marketer’s customers.

Almost a month and a half after being excommunicated fromColumbia Gas of Ohio’s Customer Choice program for failure todeliver gas to its customers in August, Ohio marketer Energy Maxhas found itself at the epicenter of a complaint lodged by the OhioConsumers Council (OCC) in the interests of the marketer’scustomers.

The short-term remedy for price fluctuations in the Californiabulk electric market this summer being sought by San Diego Gas andElectric (SDG&E) — a $250/MWh cap for all wholesale sales inthe state — will have”little more than a placebo” effect, saidthe New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) in a protest broughtearlier this week.

Northwest continued to bar any on-system balancing or bankingMonday, saying its operational flexibility was “severely limited”by storage accounts being almost full.

Despite being labeled the main cause of California’s powermarket woes by the Governor, independent power producers say theyare willing to cooperate with any investigation by the FederalEnergy Regulatory Commission (FERC) into the wholesale powermarket.

Sonat reported being notified Tuesday morning that beginningtoday, Ocean Energy will be performing maintenance that requiresshut-in of the Main Pass 153 receipt point until further notice.Sonat declared a force majeure and said it will not schedule anynominations at the point during the outage.