Cost

In the midst of the continuing uncertainty over regulatorytreatment of growing wholesale electricity cost under-collections,Fitch Tuesday assigned a “rating watch negative” designation to thesecurities of California’s two largest investor-owned utilities,Pacific Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison (and itsparent company, Edison International). In addition, it loweredEdison’s commercial paper rating one notch to “F1” from “F1+”.

The New York State Public Service Commission has acted to eitherfreeze or decrease the distribution portion of charges to naturalgas customers of Niagara Mohawk Power through Aug. 31, 2003 as partof a multi-year rate and restructuring plan.

Kansas City, MO’s Utilicorp United Inc. is shopping around, andhas already begun to narrow its options on which “high quality,low-cost fleet of generators” to pair with its wholesale merchantmoneymaker Aquila Energy, management announced yesterday. Apartnership deal is expected to be unveiled within a few months.

In the most recent effort to expand its Internet presence, SouthernCompany is launching an online energy and cost management informationsystem, www.EnergyDirect.com. The site is the company’sfirst Internet offering created expressly for all business customers.

Now that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finally blessedthe merger of BP Amoco and ARCO, what’s next? “A lot ofcost-cutting very quickly,” said Edward Jones analyst Kate Warne,who admitted to being stumped for anything else to say about thedeal that was a year in the making (see NGI, April 5, 1999).

At the cost of a long fight and new orders to work overtime onimproving their community relations, Canadian producers have won avictory preserving access to a major drilling target: “sour”natural gas, laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

At the cost of a long fight and new orders to work overtime onimproving their community relations, Canadian producers have won avictory preserving access to a major drilling target: “sour”natural gas, laced with lethal hydrogen-sulphide.

Mexico’s energy regulatory commission (CRE) has defined a newgas distribution geographic zone and put out a call for bids fordevelopment of a distribution system expected to cost about $35million. The system will serve the region of North Bajio includingmunicipalities Aguascalientes-Jesus Maria-San Francisco de losRomo, Aguascalientes; San Luis Potosi-Soledad de Graciano Sanchez,San Luis Potosi; and Zacatecas-Guadalupe, Fresnillo, Calera andMorelos, Zacatecas.

Under the “Energize RI” program, Providence Gas Co. (ProvGas)has been awarded $2.45 million by the Rhode Island Public UtilitiesCommission (PUC) for losses attributable to external forces theutility experienced last winter. The original request was grantedby the the PUC’s Division of Public Utilities and Carriers (theDivision) in March but it was subject to PUC approval.