Brief

Guardian Pipeline, a planned new interstate natural gas pipelineto serve northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, is movingforward with an open season that will begin May 4. The pipelinewill have a minimum capacity of 650 MMcf/d and will be expandable,depending on the market response, to a capacity of up to 1.1 Bcf/d.It already has signed a firm precedent agreement with Wisconsin Gasto transport 650 MMcf/d, beginning Nov. 1, 2002, the project’splanned in-service date. The pipeline will transport gas frominterconnections with Alliance, Northern Border, NICOR, Midwestern,NGPL and the proposed Tristate Pipeline near Joliet, IL, tonorthern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin markets. It willconsist of 24,000 hp of compression and 147 miles of 36-inch pipeextending from Joliet to the Watertown, WI area. Guardian isjointly owned by WICOR, CMS Energy Corp. and Viking GasTransmission, with each holding a one-third interest. The openseason closes June 3. For more information contact George Hass,313-436-9238.

The White House has given the green-light to the renomination ofCommissioner Curt Hebert Jr. for a full five-year term at theFederal Energy Regulatory Commission. “It’s my understanding thatthey’ve signed off on my nomination,” Hebert told NGI.SenateMajority Leader Trent Lott (R-MS) sent a letter to the White Housein January seeking his renomination. The Senate EnergyCommitteeis expected to schedule a hearing after Congress returns fromrecess in mid-April, at which time it will begin to schedule ahearing.

For the second day in a row, the futures market raced off to afast start as steady buying bolstered prices to their highest marksince December. But in contrast to Tuesday’s price action, whichfeatured the May contract finishing near its daily high,Wednesday’s rally ran into heavy overhead selling that trimmedthose gains into the close. May finished up 3.5 cents to $2.013,after notching a $2.07 high.

The futures market continued higher Friday, but it was notwithout a struggle when morning short-covering was followed by abrief, but spirited, long liquidation early in the afternoon.However, that dip in prices paved the way for another round of”bargain buying” as some fresh longs were seen entering the fray.And just as the case has been almost the entire week, it was bullsthat ended up on top Friday, with April finishing at $1.854, up 1.9cents for the day and 15.5 cents for the week.

Sempra Energy Trading announced it has relocated its corporateheadquarters to Stamford, CT, from Greenwich. The energy marketersigned a 10-year-lease on a 35,000 square-foot renovated warehousein Commerce Park. The new space is nearly double the size ofSempra’s former offices and features a 15,000-square-foot tradingfloor. “It is large enough to accommodate our future growth plans,”said David Messer, president of Sempra Energy Trading. Thewarehouse space was transformed easily into a trading floor due toits high ceilings, open space and heavy power supply, he added. Therenovations included the addition of a new trading floor, offices,conference rooms, cafeteria and library. Currently, the newheadquarters houses 153 employees. Formerly known as AIG Trading,Sempra Energy Trading adopted its current name when it was jointlyacquired by Sempra Energy (formed by the merger of Enova Corp. andPacific Enterprises) in August 1997.

After two brief rally efforts failed to produce higher prices,the futures market again came under selling pressure as moreprominent bearish fundamentals more than offset below-normal marketarea temperatures. And in a rare occurrence, the 4.1-cent loss seenin the prompt March contract was outpaced by more substantiallosses in the April, May, June and July contracts.

Sources were searching for new ways of expressing “flat” as1999’s relative lack of volatility in day trading continued Monday.A lot of zeroes were showing up in the average-change column of theprice table even as lack of fundamentals again failed to depresscash numbers. A Southwest trader reporting “not much demand andplenty of supply available” was surprised that prices weren’t goingdown.

Duke/Fluor Daniel said it has been awarded a turnkey contract byPanda Paris Power LP, to provide engineering, procurement,construction and start-up services for a proposed 1,000 MWgas-fired power plant in Paris, TX. “Power from the plant will bedistributed through TU Electric and will be sold to members of theElectric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the Southwest PowerPool (SPP) and other users,” said a spokesman for Dallas-basedPanda Energy, parent company of Panda Paris Power. Commercialoperation of the combined cycle power plant is scheduled for summer2000. Construction will begin next March.

Occidental Petroleum’s oil and gas drilling subsidiary laid off80 employees in Bakersfield, CA, on Wednesday, and will eliminateanother 130 jobs as part of a restructuring triggered by low crudeoil prices and its poor stock price performance. The subsidiary’swork force at its Bakersfield headquarters will be pared down to135 by eliminating 210 jobs and transferring another 50 employees.The company’s stock price plummeted last month to a new 52-week lowof 17 3/4 from a high of 30 3/4. It’s stock closed up 9/16 onWednesday following the announcement, but fell 1/8 Thursday to 221/8.