Charge

El Paso Natural Gas and affiliate El Paso Merchant Energy are challenging FERC’s decision last month to re-open an investigation into allegations that the bidding for transportation capacity on the pipeline’s system was skewed to favor its merchant power generation affiliates.

El Paso Natural Gas and affiliate El Paso Merchant Energy have challenged FERC’s decision last month to re-open an investigation into allegations that the bidding for transportation capacity on the pipeline’s system was skewed to favor its merchant power generation affiliates.

The New Power Company made another charge into Ohio last week as it announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire approximately 17,000 residential and small commercial natural gas customers, bringing the total number of customers it serves in Ohio to 167,000.

FERC last week cleared El Paso Natural Gas of charges that it rigged the bidding for capacity on its system during an open season in February 2000 to favor its affiliates El Paso Merchant Energy Gas L.P. and El Paso Merchant Energy Co., but allegations that the El Paso companies engaged in market and price manipulation weren’t as readily dismissed.

FERC yesterday cleared El Paso Natural Gas of charges that itrigged the bidding for capacity on its system during an open seasonin February 2000 to favor its affiliates El Paso Merchant EnergyGas L.P. and El Paso Merchant Energy Co. The charges arose when thetwo affiliates ended up the big winners, snaring contracts for 1.22Bcf of firm capacity to the California border – about one-third ofthe capacity on the pipeline.

Canada’s fuel cell industry got a charge this week when theboard of directors of Fuel Cells Canada inaugurated a privatesector, not-for-profit organization designed to offer services andsupport to developers.

In simplest terms, the two men leading the charge to become thenext president of the United States view the energy issue inopposite ways. Republican candidate George W. Bush sees the glassas half empty, and wants to replenish it with new supplies.Democratic challenger Al Gore sees the glass as half full, andwants to conserve and re-use it as much as possible.

For the second trading session in a row Monday the Aprilcontract opened at 2.81, but in contrast to the price fallexperienced last Friday, prices spiked higher at the open yesterdayand quickly tested life-of-contract highs. However, severalattempts to punch through the $2.88 level failed and that left themarket with an 8.6 cent advance and a $2.86 closing price.

FERC last week approved Transwestern Pipeline’s proposals tobuild a new Gallup compressor station on the San Juan lateral nearits mainline and to install cooling equipment at two existingcompressor stations also on the lateral. Both measures are designedto alleviate on-going constraints on the lateral and bring thepipeline up to its certificated capacity level of 1.09 Bcf/d fordelivery to California.