Bolster

With the amount of capital driving today’s energy companies,Statoil Energy recently announced it is searching for a partner tobolster its resource base. A spokesman for the Virginia-basedenergy marketer said the process is moving quickly and the companyhopes to find a partner by the end of the year.

With the amount of capital driving today’s energy companies,Statoil Energy recently announced it is searching for a partner tobolster its resource base. A spokesman for the Virginia-basedenergy marketer said the process is moving quickly and the companyhopes to have found a partner by the end of the year.

Illinova Energy Partners (IEP) purchased another niche retailmarketing operation last week to bolster its presence in keyderegulating markets. The company, which has added EMC GasTransmission in Michigan and Equitable Resource Marketing inIndiana during the last six months, purchased Tempe, AZ-basedQuality Energy Services (QES) to gain a foothold in thesoon-to-be-deregulated Arizona energy market.

Illinova Energy Partners (IEP) purchased another niche retailmarketing operation yesterday to bolster it presence in keyderegulating markets. The company, which has added EMC GasTransmission in Michigan and Equitable Resource Marketing inIndiana during the last six months, purchased Tempe, AZ-basedQuality Energy Services (QES) to gain a foothold in thesoon-to-be-deregulated Arizona energy market.

Following its reorganization of semi-autonomous PacificNorthwest and Texas gas assets, PG&E Gas Transmission (PG&EGT) is looking to bolster earnings through alliances andacquisitions that it hopes to complete later this year, accordingto Thomas King, president/COO of the Houston-based unit of PG&ECorp. PG&E GT transports an average of 6 Bcf/d through the tworegions.

For the second week in a row, cooler temperatures and spikingcash prices piqued the attention of buyers Monday, prompting shortcovering amid some fresh buying. That enabled the prompt Januarycontract to gap higher on the open, and quickly move to majorresistance at $2.00. But the buying dried up and January was tradedmostly sideways before ticking down at the final bell. Januaryfinished at $1.952, up 9.4 cents for the day.