Brakes

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week put the brakes on an index-based transportation contract that Transwestern Pipeline negotiated with Dynegy Marketing and Trade, saying the agreement flies in the face of a mid-July order suspending the Enron-affiliated pipeline’s authority to do such deals for an entire year.

Ontario Premier Ernie Eves last week put the brakes on the province’s newborn competitive power market and proposed a rate fixing plan some critics said was eerily similar to what happened in California, trigging blackouts and utility bankruptcies.

Energy merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the United States and abroad could face a slowdown in the near term due to the economic and political uncertainty following the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes, according to a report by the Global Energy and Utilities group at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Energy merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the United States and abroad could face a slowdown in the near term due to the economic and political uncertainty in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes, according to a report by the Global Energy and Utilities group at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In the latest of a yearlong effort to put the brakes to anunwelcome MarketLink project, the state of New Jersey and thestate’s Department of Law and Public Safety called on FERC lastweek to rescind and vacate the certificate approving constructionof the controversial pipeline expansion through the northern partof the state, and to treat sponsor Transcontinental Gas Pipe LineCorp.’s recent request to amend the project as a new application.

After tapping on the brakes a few times Wednesday, theresurgence in November prices had its foot back on the acceleratorThursday. While not quite pedal-to-the-metal as in Tuesday’s gainsthat often hit 30 cents or more, double-digit increases againdominated the cash market.

In an attempt to put the brakes on the on-going merger mania,two trade groups of consumer-owned electric utilities petitionedFERC Monday to impose a two-year moratorium on marriages betweenand among large power utilities.