Chunk

Casting off the contracts that once catapulted it to the top of the gas marketer rankings, Mirant Corp. on Thursday said it will sell a significant portion of its Canadian gas aggregator, transportation and storage agreements to food processing giant Cargill Ltd. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but financially struggling Mirant said it would reduce its collateral obligations by about $200 million.

Casting off the contracts that once catapulted it to the top of the gas marketer rankings, Mirant Corp. last Thursday said it will sell a significant portion of its Canadian gas aggregator, transportation and storage agreements to food processing giant Cargill Ltd. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but financially struggling Mirant said it would reduce its collateral obligations by about $200 million.

Seeking to ease the flow of power across a big chunk of the Eastern Interconnection, the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO), PJM Interconnection and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on Wednesday announced plans to pursue the development of a multi-regional approach to strengthen electric transmission, operations and related transactions.

While sharply lower oil and gas prices took an 80% chunk out of Devon Energy’s earnings in the first quarter, the company’s oil and gas production soared, following the additions of Anderson Exploration and Mitchell Energy.

The controversial two-year period in which Dynegy Marketing andTrade held a huge chunk of El Paso’s firm capacity to the SouthernCalifornia border is coming to an end, but if western gas tradersare looking for a new market regime in the new millennium they maybe sorely disappointed. El Paso announced Friday that it has foundanother buyer willing to hold on to 1.2 Bcf/d of firm space to theCalifornia border.

The controversial two-year period in which Dynegy Marketing andTrade held a huge chunk of El Paso’s firm capacity to the SouthernCalifornia border is coming to an end, and western gas traders arelooking for a new market regime in the new millennium. Unless thepipeline manages to negotiate a deal for most if not all of thecapacity expiring at the end of 1999, traders are expecting theabundance of transportation space from Southwest basins to theborder to lower regional prices next year.

Adding to the lengthy and often heated controversy surroundingits contractual relationship with El Paso Natural Gas, Dynegy hassigned up for another 196 MMcf/d of El Paso pipeline capacity,bringing under its control a total of 1.5 Bcf/d of space on thesouthwestern pipeline.

A transportation agreement signed by Columbia Gulf and theTennessee Valley Authority (TVA) may mark the beginning of alasting relationship. The agreement covers firm transportation onColumbia for 240,000 MMBtu/d of gas that will fuel 1,500 MW ofpower generation at TVA’s Gallatin Power Plant in Sumner County,TN. But the plant represents a small piece of a larger conversionprocess which will turn another 20 generation units to gas usageover the next year.

Under pressure at FERC for buying such a large chunk (40%) ofthe firm transportation capacity to California on El Paso NaturalGas, NGC Corp. announced late yesterday it is releasing 593,122MMBtu/d, or about 40% of the capacity it holds on the pipeline fora one-month term. It is the first quantity of transportationcapacity NGC has released since its negotiated contract with ElPaso became effective Jan. 1 and may appear to be a response toprotesters who have accused the marketing firm of withholdingwestbound capacity in order to prop up capacity prices. “It’spressure from the hearings at FERC last month,” said one observer.A spokeswoman had no comment on why the firm was releasing thecapacity. Demand remains strong in California despite the start ofa shoulder month. “Our goal is not to corner the market but ratherto use what we can,” one NGC marketer said cryptically.