Bulk

Conoco Inc.’s Canadian midstream arm, Conoco Canada Limited,said yesterday it has acquired the bulk of Petro-Canada’s naturalgas liquids (NGL) business, including the fifth largest natural gasprocessing plant in North America, for an undisclosed sum. Closingon the purchase is scheduled to be completed in the second quarterof 2000.

In an $88.1 million switch, California regulators last weekdecided to reallocate the bulk of Southern California Gas Co.’s$161.8 million in 1997 step-down charges paid to El Paso NaturalGas and Transwestern interstate pipelines serving southernCalifornia from the mass regulated consumers to large industrial(noncore) customers. SoCalGas maintains that the buy-out eventuallywill save its customers between $320 and $525 million.

Carolina Power & Light Co. (CP&L) would bulk upconsiderably with its planned acquisition, announced yesterday, ofFlorida Progress Corp., parent of Florida Power, for $5.3 billion.The combined company would be worth about $17 billion and serve 2.7million customers, nearly 200,000 of them gas. It also would be thenation’s ninth-largest energy utility based on generating capacityof more than 18,500 megawatts.

In the aftermath of selling its bulk energy marketing arm,Consolidated Natural Gas (CNG) said it plans to shift its focus toCNG Producing, its New Orleans-based E&P arm, which willsignificantly increase over-all oil and gas production next year asthree key offshore pipeline projects come into operation. Much ofthe increase is expected to come from its production activities inthe Gulf of Mexico.

The Williams Companies completed the acquisition of Mapco Inc.shifting the bulk of the company’s assets into an unregulatedbusiness environment.