Consolidate

The “desperation” by utilities to consolidate, mutate or get outof the business altogether is a good thing, said utilities analystDaniel Ford of ABN AMRO, because this fear is where most of thestock values are now being created. Ford, a keynote speaker atPowerMart 2000 in Houston, called investors a “fickle bunch,” butadded they are sticking with utility stocks.

Effective with Nov. 1 nominations, ANR will consolidate itsWillow Run (Receipt) and Willow Run (Delivery) locations into onebi-directional nominatable point. The combined location will benamed Willow Run (MichCon) and use the existing Data Reference No.42078. It is the only location that will be needed for eitherreceipts or deliveries, and will be available for Park and Lendactivity.

Coastal Oil & Gas and Santa Fe Snyder have exchangedproperties in Utah, Wyoming, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico “toconsolidate assets into core areas for each company. Coastalreceived interests in six GOM blocks, plus the Jeffress Field inSouth Texas and 97,000 acres in Uintah and Duchense Counties inUtah. Coastal also received a cash payment of $18 million. Santa FeSnyder received interests in 22 Wyoming fields in the Green RiverBasin and three units in Gaines County, TX, in the Permian Basin.

The overall market continued to consolidate mostly flatpositions Tuesday in another session of quiet trading and fairlytight price ranges. The little bit of movement tended to beslightly to the downside. Once again traders gleaned little in theway of guidance from a stagnant futures screen or from mild weatherfundamentals. A couple of sources seemed resigned to finishing outthe rest of the week in a sideways market.

Attempting to consolidate its offshore pipeline assets under onecompany, El Paso Energy Corp.’s El Paso Field Services sold itsinterest in an offshore gathering system to Leviathan Gas PipelinePartners L.P. for $85.26 million in cash and stock exchanges. ElPaso will receive $63.945 million in Leviathan stock, improving itsholding interest in the company from 27.3% to 34%. The sale of theViosca Knoll Gathering Co. (VKGC) still needs to be approved byLeviathan’s board of directors. El Paso said the deal will beratified by March 31 and that no employees will be affected.

Amoco said yesterday it would consolidate its U.S. explorationand production management offices in Houston to cut costs andincrease competitiveness. About 660 E&P management, technicaland administrative jobs in Denver and New Orleans will be affected.Many of the positions will be relocated to Houston, but Amoco saidthere will be some jobs eliminated as well.