Clearing

Silicon Valley met the energy crisis and backed off, clearing the way for Calpine Corp. and joint-venture partner, Bechtel, to develop a $400 million, 600 MW, natural gas-fired power plant, the Metcalf Energy Center, at the southern-most end of San Jose, CA. If all goes well, Calpine will begin construction this year and have the power plant running by summer 2003.

Silicon Valley met the energy crisis and backed off, clearing the way for Calpine Corp. and joint-venture partner, Bechtel, to develop a $400 Million, 600 MW, natural gas-fired power plant, the Metcalf Energy Center, at the southern-most end of San Jose, CA. If all goes well, Calpine will begin construction this year and have the power plant running by summer 2003.

Williams Cos. was granted early termination of the regulatory waiting period under antitrust laws this week, clearing the way for its proposed acquisition of Denver-based Barrett Resources. Under terms of the agreement announced last month (see Daily GPI, May 8), Williams made a cash tender offer to purchase 16 million shares of Barrett stock at $73 a share. The offer expires June 11.

The European Commission has approved Chevron Corp.’s purchase ofTexaco Inc., clearing one hurdle on its road toward a successfulmerger by possibly this summer. Still to come is the lengthy U.S.approval process, including approval by the U.S. Federal TradeCommission. In a statement, the European Commission said that “thenumber of areas where the companies’ activities overlap in Europeis limited and where they do (overlap), the combined market sharesremain below 15%.” Chevron has sold most of its Europeanoperations: some in 1984 to Texaco, another group to RoyalDutch/Shell Group in 1997 and some to Petroplus in 1998. SanFrancisco-based Chevron agreed to buy Texaco, based in WhitePlains, NY, last October for $35.1 billion in stock and assumeddebt of $7.5 billion (see NGI, Oct. 23, 2000).

The European Commission has approved Chevron Corp.’s purchase ofTexaco Inc., clearing one hurdle on its road toward a successfulmerger by possibly this summer. Still to come is the lengthy U.S.approval process, including approval by the U.S. Federal TradeCommission. In a statement, the European Commission said that “thenumber of areas where the companies’ activities overlap in Europeis limited and where they do (overlap), the combined market sharesremain below 15%.” Chevron has sold most of its Europeanoperations: some in 1984 to Texaco, another group to RoyalDutch/Shell Group in 1997 and some to Petroplus in 1998. SanFrancisco-based Chevron agreed to buy Texaco, based in WhitePlains, NY, last October for $35.1 billion in stock and assumeddebt of $7.5 billion (see Daily GPI, Oct. 17, 2000).

Clearing the decks for its mega-trading and transportationventure with Entergy Corp., Koch Energy Trading yesterday announcedit has taken over the remaining 50% interest in IMD Storage,Transportation and Asset Management Co. (IMDST), making it the soleowner of the company which manages more than 100 Bcf of storage andabout 1 Bcf/d of pipeline transportation.

FERC tied up all the loose ends in the Maritimes & NortheastPipeline project in a draft order released yesterday, clearing theway for the pipeline to begin delivering about 350 MMcf/d of SableIsland gas to power plants, paper mills and new markets in Maineand other New England states this fall.

Moving one step closer to bringing 1.325 Bcf/d of gas fromWestern Canada to Chicago, Alliance Pipeline announced the start ofconstruction with the clearing of 410 miles of forestedrights-of-way for mainlines and laterals in northwestern Albertaand northeastern British Columbia. The entire system is expected tobe completed and in service by October, 2000. Alliance said italready has commitments from 37 shippers for 15-year contractsworth a total of $8.2 billion.

New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman signed an energyderegulation bill last week, clearing the way for statewideelectric unbundling to occur by Aug. 1 and statewide, residentialgas unbundling to be in place by Dec. 31. The bill was passed bythe state’s legislature late last month (See NGI, Feb. 1).