Called

Amid a day one broker called “perhaps the most boring of any Iremember,” the spot June NYMEX contract nudged 0.4 cents lower tosettle at $2.200. The broker actually said the day was interestingin that a large amount of anticipated activity never materialized.”Every floor trader we spoke to expected when June broke below$2.18, tons of sell stops would kick in between $2.15-17. But therewasn’t diddly squat for stops. In fact, just the opposite happenedin that there was pretty good scaled-down buying once June hit$2.15,” he said.

Duke Energy, Iroquois Pipeline and Williams Cos. have teamed upto build a $240 million gas pipeline, called the LighthousePipeline, to extend under Long Island Sound to southernConnecticut. The pipeline would transport U.S. and Canadian naturalgas from Williams’ Transco pipeline, Duke’s Algonquin and TexasEastern pipelines and the Iroquois pipeline to new generationprojects in Southern Connecticut. It’s also expected to facilitatedevelopment of other power generation projects on Long Island.

Energy Pacific launched a new energy service called Power ChoiceCalifornia, which will help companies make electricity buyingdecisions in a restructured marketplace. The company launched theservice through a pilot with Hewlett-Packard earlier this year andwill begin marketing the service in April. “We’re finding that manycustomers just don’t know where to begin when asking energyproviders for price quotes, or even what their energy options are,”said Eric Nelson, president of Energy Pacific, an unregulated jointventure of Pacific Enterprises and Enova Corp.

FirstEnergy Corp. and Belden & Blake Corp. agreed to createa joint venture called FE Holdings to acquire natural gasproperties. The companies also agreed to buy privately held MarbelEnergy Corp., a fully integrated natural gas company. “The creationof FE Holdings – with access to low-cost, high-quality explorationand production capabilities combined with utility distribution andtransportation facilities – will produce tremendous opportunitiesfor our company, customers and shareholders,” said FirstEnergy CEOWillard R. Holland. “The ability to offer customers bothelectricity and natural gas, as well as a wide range of otherenergy-related products and services, will further enhance ourposition as a strong competitor in the evolving energy industry.”

Viking Voyageur Gas Transmission called on FERC to dismiss ANRPipeline’s latest attacks on its project, saying they were”thinly-veiled” efforts to prevent, or “at least delay for as longas possible,” construction of a pipeline project that would bringsorely-needed competition into ANR’s Wisconsin market area.Voyageur, which would import Canadian gas into several Midwestmarkets, “is a significant threat to ANR’s market dominance inWisconsin. As a result, ANR has made every possible effort tothwart the Commission’s pro-competitive policies by delayingVoyageur’s project,” the proposed pipeline said in comments at theCommission [CP98-65].