Buying

“Owners of small businesses, intent on reducing their operatingcosts, are receptive to the idea of buying their energy supplies atreduced group rates through local or regional businessassociations,” according to a new study by RKS Research andConsulting. The North Salem, NY firm said a small businesssub-group, home-based businesses, would consider discountwarehouses and membership clubs for low-priced electricity offers.RKS also found a market emerging around the idea of bundledservices, including energy, local and long distance telephoneservice and Internet access all on one bill. While the small usersare interested in cutting costs, they can’t do without service.”Across the board, business owners say they seek long-termrelationships with suppliers who stress simplicity and ease ofuse…..They are willing to trade off price for service, qualitybrand name and convenience.”

If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute. And that’s exactlywhat the natural gas market will be doing this week followingforecasts calling for the coldest weather of the season togradually move south from Canada over the next couple of days. Buttraders weren’t waiting last Friday as they aggressively coveredshorts and initiated fresh longs in bullish anticipation of thefalling mercury. After gapping up at the open, the January spikedhigher Friday to finish at $2.446, a 16.1-cent advance for the day.

El Paso Merchant Power has found a way to leverage itsregulatory expertise into a whole new business, buying up gas-firedcogeneration facilities across the country – and the power supplycontracts that go with them – to create “the lowest cost merchantpower plant portfolio being assembled in the industry.”

HS Resources will buy Houston-based Kinder Morgan’s gatheringsystem in the Wattenberg field area of the Denver-Julesberg Basin,along with its interests in the Amoco-BP Wattenberg Gas ProcessingPlant and KN Wattenberg LLC, which owns the Wattenbergtransmission system, in a phased transaction.

Liquefied natural gas imports to the United States continued onthe upswing yesterday with Coral Energy’s announcement it is buyinga whopping 29 Bcf in 11 cargoes FOB from Oman LNG LLC for shipmentin 2000 and 2001. The LNG will be loaded at Oman LNG’s plant atQalhat, Sultanate of Oman, for delivery into CMS Energy Corp.’s CMSTrunkline LNG terminal in Lake Charles, LA. Coral chartered thevessel LNG Arzew from Shell Bermuda (Overseas) Ltd. to carry theLNG. Terms of the agreements were not released. A Coral spokesmansaid no other details were available about the transaction.

After a strong opening failed to attract the buying necessary tofill the chart gap up to $2.52, the natural gas futures marketsagged Friday, as traders turned once again to the deleteriouseffects of above-normal temperatures in both short and long rangeforecasts.

Columbia Gas opened a data room this week to provide informationto anyone interested in buying its Derrick’s Creek storage field inKanawha County, WV. The field has about 6.2 Bcf of total storagespace, 20 gas storage wells and 13 miles of related pipelinefacilities. In 1996, Columbia announced plans to sell the field,which is not part of its core transportation and storageoperations. Interested parties should contact Columbia at (304)357-2282. Access to the data room will be available until Dec. 3.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) last week announced plans to buy300 MMcf/d of firm capacity in Koch Gateway Pipeline’s Mobile Baylateral. The firm space will be utilized as upstream supply accessfor FGT’s Phase V expansion project, which is expected to be filedby Dec. 1. FGT said the Mobile Bay lateral agreement will be filedas part of the Phase V expansion and will be contingent upon theexpansion project being approved.

Florida Gas Transmission (FGT) yesterday announced plans to buy300 MMcf/d of firm capacity in Koch Gateway Pipeline’s Mobile Baylateral. The firm space will be utilized as upstream supply accessfor FGT’s Phase V expansion project, which is expected to be filedby Dec. 1. FGT said the Mobile Bay lateral agreement will be filedas part of the Phase V expansion and will be contingent upon theexpansion project being approved.