Concern

Williams reported last Monday it signed a definitive deal to sell its Gulf Coast pipeline system, Texas Gas Transmission Corp., to a unit of Loews Corp. for $795 million in cash and the assumption of $250 million in debt.

Williams reported Monday it signed a definitive deal to sell its Gulf Coast pipeline system, Texas Gas Transmission Corp., to a unit of Loews Corp. for $795 million in cash and the assumption of $250 million in debt.

Several western energy suppliers — Reliant Energy Services Inc., El Paso Merchant Energy LP and Portland General Electric — are urging FERC to limit the scope of the agency’s planned public release of confidential information relating to the ongoing California market manipulation cases at the agency.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) last week called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin a federal investigation into the causes for the recent spike in natural gas prices across the nation and particularly in his home state of South Dakota.

Following similar action taken by Moody’s Investors Service earlier in the week, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) said Thursday it is lowering its corporate credit rating on Peoples Energy Corp. to “A-” from “A+” with a current outlook of stable. The agency noted that Chicago-based Peoples Energy has about $946 million in outstanding debt. In addition, S&P lowered the corporate credit rating on Peoples Energy’s Peoples Gas Light & Coke Co. subsidiary to “A-” from “AA-“.

Arizona Public Service (APS) will file a motion to reconsider a move to slow down deregulation, after the three-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) on Tuesday voted unanimously to reverse a 1999 requirement that the state’s utilities divest their generating assets. The vote followed a ruling by the commission’s administrative law judge in July, who recommended that Arizona delay competition past July 2004 because the wholesale market was not ready (see Power Market Today, Aug. 28).

Just weeks after FERC suspended Transwestern Pipeline’s authority to negotiate rates based on pricing differentials due to excessive charges to Sempra Energy Trading and another transportation customer, the Commission has expressed concerns about another negotiated firm transportation contract between the Enron pipeline subsidiary and Sempra Energy.

Just weeks after FERC suspended Transwestern Pipeline’s authority to negotiate rates based on pricing differentials due to excessive charges to Sempra Energy Trading and another transportation customer, the Commission has expressed concerns about another negotiated firm transportation contract between the Enron pipeline subsidiary and Sempra Energy.

Moody’s Investors Service has changed the rating outlooks for Duke Capital and Duke Energy to “negative” from “stable” because of Duke’s report to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week that it engaged in 23 round-trip trades on electronic trading system IntercontinentalExchange (see Daily GPI, July 17 ). Although the $126 million in revenues from the trades “are not material relative to total sales, it causes some concerns about company trading practices and related controls,” Moody’s said.