Completing

Yankee Gas Services Co. inaugurated its new customer and billingservice this week, completing a process begun in collaboration withIBM two years ago. Yankee said the system will enhance customerservice, improve efficiency and is Y2K ready. The company would notrelease the cost of the new system.

Exxon and Mobil took an important step toward completing their merger last week as shareholders for both companies approved the combination. But many industry observers viewed the votes as foregone conclusions. One source called them “glorified rubber stamps.” The real test will come during the regulatory process when the transaction undergoes strict Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and European Commission (EC) scrutiny.

PG&E Gas Transmission-Northwest reported completing hydrotesting of its A-Line ahead of schedule. The project’s end restoredcapacity to best-efforts levels of 2,620 MMcf/d at Kingsgate and1,930 MMcf/d at Station 14 Friday.

Richmond, VA-based Dominion Energy Inc. is completing its purchaseof gas producer Remington Energy Ltd., of Calgary, AB in a deal valuedat nearly US$300 million that will give Dominion a stake in AlliancePipeline. Still to be completed is its $6.3 billion deal to buyConsolidated Natural Gas (CNG) which was originally announced inFebruary just days before the Remington buyout was revealed (See Daily GPI, Feb. 25, 1999).

Completing an asset sell-off started last month, ConsolidatedEdison Co. announced Baltimore, MD-based Orion Power Holdings asthe winning bidder in the auction for three New York citygenerating facilities. Orion’s winning bid was $550 million. MorganStanley Dean Witter advised Con Edison on the sale. Orion officialssaid the deal will close by mid-1999.

Williams’ Kern River Pipeline has taken action to ensure itscontinued control over market access, completing an agreement tobuy-out a future option on the California portion of the line heldby Southern California Gas. The option would have been exercisablein 2012.