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Mitchell Energy & Development Corp. completed its previouslyannounced work force reduction and set its capital budget. As aresult of the company-wide downsizing and restructuring effort, 235positions have been eliminated, a 21% reduction in totalemployment. With these changes, the company expects annual salaryand benefits costs savings of about $17 million.

Having a U.S. congressman line up against a proposed expansionisn’t the worst thing that could happen to a natural gas pipeline,but it ranks right up there with the dreaded FERC investigation orthe unexpected financial audit. That’s the fate that has befallenTranscontinental Gas Pipe Line’s MarketLink project.

Sources were searching for new ways of expressing “flat” as1999’s relative lack of volatility in day trading continued Monday.A lot of zeroes were showing up in the average-change column of theprice table even as lack of fundamentals again failed to depresscash numbers. A Southwest trader reporting “not much demand andplenty of supply available” was surprised that prices weren’t goingdown.

Enterprise Products Partners LP of Houston subsidiary EnterpriseProducts Operating LP and five other energy companies have agreedon the ownership and operating terms of Tri-States NGL PipelineLLC.

Attempting to reach energy consumers on both coasts, SouthernCalifornia Gas Co. said Thursday it hopes to offer its Internetmarketplace to customers in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois,Pennsylvania, and Georgia in the very near future. The expansionwas announced as part of the formal launching of power trading onthe company’s energy market web site, www.energymarketplace.com.

The leadership of the Gas Industry Standards Board’s (GISB) topdecision-making committee has been in the hands of the pipelinesand producers for a number of years, but the gavel has been passedto service companies and distributors in 1999. This changing of theguard has left some feeling uneasy as they wonder whether a radicalchange in direction is in store for the standards-setting group inthe year ahead.

Uncertainty over the treatment of municipal aggregation in NewJersey’s energy deregulation legislation caused the state’srestructuring bill to be bounced back and forth several times lastweek between the general assembly and senate, resulting in at leasta two-week delay before a final decision. The restructuring billprovides strict deadlines of Aug. 1 for statewide electric utilitygeneration unbundling, and Dec. 31 for statewide gas utility supplyunbundling. It is being reviewed by the assembly at the presenttime, and the next available voting session will take place Jan.28.

©Copyright, 1999 Intelligence Press. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may Not be republished Or redistributed, in wholeOr in part, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press .

©Copyright, 1999 Intelligence Press. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may Not be republished Or redistributed, in wholeOr in part, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press .