Briefs

Pennaco Energy and TransMontaigne Inc. subsidiary Bear PawEnergy signed a gathering agreement in which Bear Paw will buildand operate a new gathering line in the Powder River Basin ofnortheastern Wyoming and provide services to about 10% of Pennaco’scoal-bed methane program in the basin. The agreement covers thePennaco “South Gillette,” WY contract area, including over 8,600gross leasehold acres and 200 potential well locations. Pennaco hasdrilled and is in the process of testing and completing its first100 wells in the area. The Bear Paw gathering systems will connectPennaco’s gas wells to several major pipelines, including theWestern Gas Resources MIGC Pipeline, currently transporting up to130 MMcf/d of coal-bed gas, the recently announced Fort Union GasPipeline projected to be in service by September of this year, andthe proposed Thunder Creek Pipeline. The remaining 90% of Pennaco’s312,000 net acres in the Powder River will be devoted to FortUnion.

Conoco Inc. filed a registration statement with the Securitiesand Exchange Commission (SEC) outlining a split-off plan fromDuPont that will establish Conoco as a fully independent company.The proposed split-off would be achieved through an exchange offerin which DuPont stockholders would be given an opportunity toexchange DuPont common stock for shares of Conoco Class B commonstock currently held by DuPont. The split-off is expected to becompleted in the third quarter. Last autumn, DuPont sold 30% ofConoco last October in the largest initial public offering in U.S.history. The IPO raised $4.4 billion and left DuPont with a 70%controlling interest in Houston-based producer.

Carolina Power &amp Light announced it is considering sites inRichmond and Rowan counties, NC, for new natural gas-fired electricgeneration to be operational in 2001 and 2002. CP&ampL plans tobuild up to seven combustion turbine units totaling about 1,100 MWto be operational by June 2001 and may build additional units to bein service in June 2002. The projects are part of CP&ampL’spreviously announced generation expansion of about 4,000 MW, or40%, by 2007. Each combustion turbine unit represents a capitalinvestment of about $40 million. Construction is scheduled to beginby the end of 1999. CP&ampL also is building additional peakinggeneration at two existing plant sites-in Wayne and Buncombecounties-and has broken ground on a 160 MW gas-fired peaking plantin Monroe, GA. Natural gas to fuel a plant in Richmond County wouldcome through North Carolina Natural’s (NCNG) pipeline andTranscontinental Gas. Last November, CP&ampL announced its plan toacquire NCNG and to make it a wholly owned subsidiary. CP&ampLanticipates receiving regulatory approval for the acquisition bymid-1999.

South Jersey Gas Co. has signed an agreement with WeatherwiseUSA allowing the New Jersey LDC to offer its retail gas customers aWeatherProof Bill. The bill, which is based on historical gas usepatterns, utility rates, average temperatures, and administrativecosts, fixes a customer’s total gas costs for 12 months withouthigh settle-up charges to cover any excess gas use.

California regulators have given the green light to continueindefinitely the three-year-old incentive gas buying program atSouthern California Gas Co., dispensing at year-end 1998 with anannual review of the program, which has even drawn praise from theusually critical Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) at theCalifornia Public Utilities Commission. The program reportedly hassaved millions of dollars for SoCalGas’ smallest customers who relyon the utility to buy their supplies. In 1998, SoCalGas reportsearning a $2 million award for its shareholders for the latest12-month operations of its so-called “Gas Cost IncentiveMechanism.” Based on benchmarked market prices if SoCalGas can dosignificantly better than the market average, resulting inquantifiable savings for its merchant customers, part of thosesavings flow back to its shareholders, who in this case are ownersof the SoCal parent, Sempra Energy. Shareholders have earned $16million in rewards through the incentive gas-purchase program overthe past three years, according to SoCalGas.

Nominations for the trip to Chicago on Northern Border reached490 MMcf/d by the middle of last week, which shows the line hasbeen ramping up gradually since beginning service on Dec. 22. Butit still is about 175 MMcf/d short of being full. The 665 MMcf/dextension did not begin service near full capacity as pipelineofficials had predicted for a number of reasons, a spokeswomansaid. “The California market has been particularly strong the lastfew weeks. The delivery point at Sumas, WA, has been veryprice-positive for the Canadians so there’s been a huge amount ofgas going in that direction,” noted Northern Border’s Beth Jensen.There also was a set-back caused by water left in the linefollowing hydrostatic testing. “They did have some delivery pointsthat froze so we had to work those things out.” Unfortunately therewas a four-day period without gas flow just prior to bidweek, whichcreated market uncertainty entering the month and probably impactednominations. “The kinks in the system are being worked out,” shesaid. “Now nominations at Manhattan, IL, [into Peoples] are 340MMcf/d and at Minooka [into NiGas] are 150 MMcf/d. “Frankly I don’tthink the market in Chicago to this point has jelled. I think it’son its way to working out. But right now the market off of Ventura,IA, [into Northern Natural to Minnesota and western Wisconsin]seems to be as strong as anything. It’s been very cold up there.”Northern Border’s expansion/extension project increased take-awaycapacity at Ventura by 260 MMcf/d.

Gulf Canada Resources said it closed on a 50-50 partnershipagreement with KeySpan Energy for the operation of its natural gasmidstream business in western Canada. Cash consideration paid byKeySpan was $290 million (US$189 million) to Gulf plus a $100million (US$65 million) loan to the partnership. The cash willoffset significant charges Gulf took during the third quarterprimarily related to crude oil asset write-downs.

Devon Energy Corp. and Canadian-based Northstar Energy Corp.completed their merger, which was announced June 29. Devon isissuing about 16.1 million common equivalent shares to theNorthstar shareholders. In addition, Devon is assuming US$312million in existing Northstar debt. Northstar shareholders arereceiving 0.235 exchangeable shares for each Northstar share. Witha total capitalization of $1.9 billion, the merged company DevonEnergy Corp. is one of the top 15 U.S.-based independent oil andgas producers. The company is balanced with 54% of its provedreserves in the United States and 46% in Canada and has totalproved reserves of about 300 million Boe.

Executing a plan first announced in August, Washington WaterPower will change its corporate name to Avista Corp. Jan. 1 thecompany announced Tuesday. All company operations will be unifiedunder the new name. Washington Water Power along with its WPNatural Gas division will combine to form an operating division ofthe new company called Avista Utilities. On Jan. 4, the firstbusiness day of the new year, all Washington Water Power stock willbe traded for the first time as Avista Corp. common stock under theticker symbol “AVA”. According to a company spokesman, the namechange allows the company more flexibility beyond its utilityidentity and geographic location.